


How Michelle Jones Finally Got to Kiss Peter Parker

by outofcontextbucky



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Spideychelle, TomDaya, mjpeter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-06-27 10:03:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 34,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19788619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outofcontextbucky/pseuds/outofcontextbucky
Summary: She would be lying if she said she hasn't thought about it since forever.Even after the snap, Mj finds herself still crushing over Peter Parker, and she's just fine staying friends and doing nothing about it. Enter a handsome kid who survived the snap, a mugging incident, an alien spaceship, and a lot of other things, Mj might just end up right where she wants to be.This is the story of how Michelle Jones finally got to kiss Peter Parker.[COMPLETED] [ALSO UPLOADED ON WATTPAD]





	1. a little something that sparked it all

**Author's Note:**

> full disclosure: this story was written purely out of pleasure. if you've read my bucky fic this is not like that at all. i wasn't thinking about deep plots and great character arches, just something to satisfy my sweet tooth. don't expect too much, just enjoy the ride.  
> ALSO: this story just jumps right in during the start, but we jump back and forth a little to fill in the blanks. and the writing gets better, i promise.  
> (no spoilers for far from home in this fic, but i believe if you're reading this, you might've watched it already.)

_present day_

It would still be Peter, though, Mj thought. If she had to choose.

She stared off into space, her mind quite not focused on the discussion ensuing in front of the room, instead fondling the folded piece of paper Brad gave her. It was dog-eared around the edges from the amount of times she opened and closed it, read and re-read what he had written.

 _You look beautiful when you smile_.

She was supposed to be swooning over this, but honestly, all it gave her was a little smile, and only because the attention from the handsome Brad Davis was nice.

“Mr. Parker, do you know who said that famous quote?” Mrs. Tate cut through the silence in her head with the mention of his name.

“Uh,” Peter started, “Louis Sullivan?”  
“That is correct. Very good, Mr. Parker.”

It took all of Mj’s strength not to glance back at him for the few seconds he spoke, but even then she couldn’t help but look at him, looking back to the front just as quickly.

It would still be him, if she had to choose. She couldn’t though.

The little crush Mj garnered on Peter in the seventh grade never really went away when it was supposed to, and it was hard for it to fade away when Peter was a constant force in her life. She watched him crush hard on Liz for a year, she watched him through a depressive phase when Tony Stark died, she watched him come back on his feet, all the while cheering from him by the sidelines.

He never knew. She wanted to keep it that way. She didn’t want anyone to know, in fact, that she couldn’t help but smile when he did, that when he laughed at her jokes it sent weird little critters in her stomach she refused to label butterflies. She was cooler than that.

There were no critters when she was with Brad, and she hated to admit it. 

“You’re one of the coolest girls I know, you know,” he told her the other day at lunch, and she smiled. It didn’t make the knots in her stomach curl, but it _was_ good for her ego.

“You just haven’t talked to that many girls yet.”

Brad laughed, and she waited for the insects to crawl into her chest, tickle her from the inside the way they did when Peter chuckled, or when Peter smiled, or when Peter did absolutely _anything_ , actually but they didn’t come. They never did.

She was nearing 17 by now, and she was getting worried: not that she lived by her words or anything, but Mj hadn’t done anything in Taylor Swift’s song _Fifteen._ Was it really worth doing it if it wasn’t with Peter?

***

“Mj’s with Brad again,” muttered Peter to Ned as they sat down on their usual spot in the cafeteria. The sight of them tugged at his heart the way it did the first time he’d seen them together. He still didn’t understand why.

Ned opened his lunch as he looked up at the pair, not quite as concerned as Peter was. “Yeah, I can’t believe she’s dating a dickhead like him.”

“What?” Peter stopped just before he could take a bite out of his sandwich. “They’re dating? How’d you know?”

“Well, she hasn’t really hung out with us in a week,” Ned muttered, still oblivious. “And, I mean, look at them.” 

Peter did. From the cafeteria, it was easy to spot the two of them eating by one of the tables outside through the huge windows, Brad sitting down on the table with his feet on the bench the way assholes do, talking animatedly while Mj listened, smiling subtly, the book she was reading folded on her lap. It was a shutterstock image of young love.

“Come on, I don’t believe you,” Peter said, completely believing him.

“What is it to you anyway?” asked Ned as he finally cottoned on to the fact that Peter was a little more than disturbed. 

The white boy stumbled on his words as his friend listened, unconvinced as he ate his lunch. “I mean, I’m just used to her being, you know, around, and Brad’s kind of… like, he’s suddenly everyone’s all over him or something…”

Ned didn’t say anything for a while, and it gave Peter time to come back to watching Peter and Mj outside again. Mj said something quickly and Brad laughed a little too much, just before he muttered a few words again and pulled out something too small for Peter to see from this distance. Brad gently let Mj take it and she smiled at him. _Thank you_ , he could see her mouth out. Brad smiled back. Peter sighed.

“Dude are you in love with Mj or something?” Ned finally cut through the noise in Peter’s head, and he probably responded too quickly for anyone to believe he wasn’t lying.

“No,” he spat out, “no, no, maybe just a cr–no, I don’t!” He shook his head.

“Dude, you’re totally crushing on Mj.”

They spent the next few minutes arguing about it, Peter incessantly saying he didn’t while Ned pushed the idea that he did, and only when the bell rang for the last class did he finally get the chance to think about it in silence. A little distracting that Mj was actually sitting a few rows ahead of him, but still, it gave him time.

It was hard to tell with him if he did actually like her or not, especially considering how close they had become after the came back from the snap. She was there for him through a lot, too, and Peter wasn’t sure whether it was a friendly, brotherly kind of affection that made him overprotective of her from Brad, or if Ned was right. Another thing, was that when Liz left, Peter realized he didn’t like her that much after all. He never was good at feelings – which was expected; he’s 17 – but apparently, he couldn’t even tell the difference between admiration for a pretty and smart senior and actually liking the girl, and it made it a little more difficult to conclude whether he did like Mj or not.

Peter’s eyes snapped to her back with every movement she made, all throughout the timespan of the class. She was wearing a black t-shirt and jeans, the small hoop earrings she always had on, and her hair was in a bun today, which Peter did like the best. It reminded him of the late afternoons they had after decathlon practice. Right after it ended she’d always messily pull back all her hair, and she’d do it so carelessly there were still so many pieces left just falling around. Peter liked her hair a lot, all curly and black and wild sometimes. He always watched her do it, and he realized now how lucky he was she never caught him.

When she raised her hand to answer a question the teacher asked her, Peter listened in for the first time that period, watching her, wondering if he even found her pretty. He found her hair pretty, that was for sure. She spun around to reach for something in her bag and glanced up at him when she did, and Peter, for some weird reason, felt his heart race a little from being caught staring. Mj held his gaze for a few second before she smiled a little and raised her middle finger quick enough to not get caught, and Peter let out a small chuckle. She turned back around. Okay, _fine,_ she was pretty. Her face was just… like that. She wore the dullest, most boring things, her hair always in disarray, but she got good genes, and she just _was_.

The next urge Peter had was to talk to her, and it was confusing how hard he found it right then and there exactly what to talk to her about when they talk all the time. Peter would see funny stuff on the internet and send it to Mj, and she’d tag him in disturbing memes. He had talked to her about Tony, for crying out loud. 

Before he could come up with anything, the bell rang, and Mj flew out of her seat before Peter could even pack up his stuff. Maybe he’d send her a funny video later that night and bring it up tomorrow, pass by her locker on purpose. Peter wondered if she sent Brad disturbing memes. The thought hurt him a little more than he thought it would.

“Hey.” 

Peter nearly stumbled as he exited the classroom with his backpack swung over his shoulder as Mj called out to him. She was standing by the doorway, her eyes lit up just a little bit with Peter there.

“Oh, hey,” he said, almost breathless for some reason. Weird.

“When do you think we should restart decathlon stuff?” she asked. “The first meet is like, in a few months.”

Peter started slowly. “We could start soon,” he said, thinking if they spent more time during practice, she’d spend more time with him instead of Brad. “So we can cover all the… stuff.”

“Yeah, but we barely need to study when you’re around,” she said. “Don’t let it get to your head, dumbass.”

Peter smiled, chuckling just the slightest bit. _Mj is complimenting me?_

“Hey,” he muttered after a few seconds, trying to make it as nonchalant as possible, “do you wanna go get some donuts or something? I’ve been craving donuts since the thing you sent me–”

Mj chuckled a little. “The cat with the thing on the–that was funny.”

“So, you wanna go?” Peter asked her, before he could think about why he was asking her in the first place, getting more nervous as the seconds passed. All he knew is that he wanted to.

He didn’t want her to hesitate, but she did. “I’m just waiting for someone,” she muttered awkwardly, like she wanted to answer something else. Peter wanted that too. “Why, you can’t buy donuts by yourself?” she teased, but it came out forced.

“Oh, okay,” said Peter. “Who are you–” he began to ask, but the answer came walking towards Mj across the hallway in a perfect fitting t-shirt and trendy distressed denim jeans, of course.

The tug in his heart that Peter had been feeling seeing the two of them all week worsened. By a lot.

“Hey,” Brad said as he approached, smiling at Mj, eyes darting between her and Peter.

Mj greeted him back, the hesitation to leave the conversation with Peter obvious, but she just shrugged at him. “Maybe tomorrow?” She was already taking a few steps away.

“No, it’s fine,” Peter smiled tightly as he watched her wave at him, walking beside Brad the way she was supposed to be walking beside him.


	2. this was as far as she'd ever get

_six weeks before_

“Hey Mj, do you think spiders are stronger than ants?”

“Peter, I don’t care about that stuff.”

Peter was lying down on the floor of the empty classroom, twidling a piece of what looked like string or something in his hands, while Mj was leaning against the wall, her nose buried in a book. The rest of the decathlon team was reading from an advanced science book, while a few others were also sitting idly, waiting for everyone else to finish.

“Come on, what do you think is cooler?”

“Shutting up when people are reading.”

“Spiders, of course,” Flash chimed in from behind the book he was reading. “I don’t see an Ant-Man, but there’s a Spider-Man, right?”

Mj looked up from her book for a brief second to look at Peter. He was looking at her. “There you go.”

In truth, her heart was quaking just the slightest. Softening. Becoming mush.

Peter was wearing a new shirt today, and his hair was doing the swooshy thing she thought was really cute. She acknowledged it during lunch and told him he looked like he was the before shot in a shampoo commercial, and Peter kind of attempted to fix it, but she meant it in the sweetest way possible and he didn’t need to know that.

“No, I’m asking you,” Peter pushed on, ignoring Flash completely, his gaze still on Mj. She could feel it, and she knew if she’d glance up from her book she’d meet eyes with him and she’d get the weird crawling critters in her stomach again, and she wasn’t ready. Oh, fine, maybe she was.

“Spiders,” she said, glancing up at him, putting on the cool, collected face she mastered. “Funnel web spider bites kill people in under 24 hours.”

Peter chuckled a little at her, then finally looked away, still lying down there on the ground, his knees bent and his hands still playing with a bit of string or something, his arms bent to hover over his face. Mj tried not to notice his arms under his sleeves, or the way his t-shirt fell against his body, but her eyes just darted there, and it made her feel some type of way. She didn’t want to think about it. It embarrassed her, confused her, and it kind of made her feel bad for thinking of Peter… that way. It was all a touchy subject, and she didn’t want to go into it especially since it was probably never going to happen.

He was scrolling through his phone now, small echoes of noise blaring out just slightly. Mj tried not to watch as he fidgeted with his hair, his fingernails, the slow thrum of his breathing. She couldn’t even read anymore, not while all of that was happening in front of her. She’d been fixated on the same page of her book, watching the boy from her peripherals. Her phone dinged a few minutes later.

“This is you.” She stared up at Peter with, finally, an excuse to look at him directly.

Peter Parker sent you a video, her phone read.

He smiled, and looked at Mj, pulling himself up with ease and sitting down. His hair was a little messy, and Mj liked it like that the best.

“Watch it, it’s funny.” He was grinning. He was adorable.

She set her phone down, eyes pretending to be annoyed. “I’m literally right here.”

Peter got up and stepped towards her, his sneakers making a sound on the classroom floor, and sat down beside her, close enough that Mj could smell his shampoo and his laundry detergent.

“Come on, look, it’s really funny,” he pushed, and Mj tried to roll her eyes as he held up his phone in front of her, the clip of a monkey getting a haircut playing. It was a little hard to concentrate on the stupid shit he was playing for her when he was that close, but she laughed, and he laughed, and Mj suddenly couldn’t hear anything else but that. He glanced at her before he returned his attention back to the stream of videos on his phone.

“I’m sending this to Ned,” he said, chuckling more to himself than anyone else now.

He was feeling good that day, she could tell from the distance they were now. Peter was a pale ass boy, but today he looked like he had a little color on his cheeks and on his lips, like he had a lot of sleep last night. She could tell when he hadn’t, and she knew it would be because of Tony Stark’s death. He never explained why he was so affected by it in the degree that he was, but Mj learned not to push, and it wasn’t like she didn’t already have a theory she’d stick to in her mind.

When all her nerves calmed down again, she returned to her book, every once in a while still looking at the boy before her through her peripherals. It wasn’t too long later that Peter annoyed her a little bit more.

“You know generally people don’t like being bothered when they’re reading,” Mj said to him. Generally, yes, but she didn’t mind when it was him. Pretty, sincere, baby-faced Peter.

Peter was around her enough to know when she was joking. “You know what we should do?”

“Let people read?”

“No,” he chuckled, pulling himself up to sit beside Mj again. “We should dismiss practice early and go get ice cream.”

“I do like that one place next to Craig’s.”

Peter nodded with a little too much enthusiasm. “Come on.”

He stood up, pulling down his shirt consciously as Mj followed suit, walking towards her bag and shoving her stuff inside it.

“Guys, next meeting after class tomorrow, library, first floor,” she announced loudly, everyone shutting their books. Peter fixed up his stuff and waited for Mj to finish her conversation with a few of the girls on the team, and waited for her by the door, and she walked towards him a little after, swinging her backpack on, exiting the classroom and walking into the hallway together.

“See, Liz never let us do this when she was still Captain,” Peter said.

“You had the fattest crush on her, you never complained,” scoffed Mj, as they walked out of the building, their feet making crunching noises on the leaves as they stepped on the ground. She pulled her hair out of the ponytail it was in, hastily combing through it with her hands, and as she expected, Peter didn’t miss a beat to watch her tie in back up.

“Yeah, but she never let us get out early, she was so serious about the decathlon.”

“You know, I don’t think I care as much.”

They walked down the stairs out of the campus, Peter keeping at a distance that made it easy for Mj to breathe, talking about the decathlon, about Liz, about Washington, all throughout the way towards the ice cream shop. In truth, Mj didn’t like ice cream all that much but if it was Peter asking her to go get some, she wasn’t going to say no. It was pathetic.

“There it is,” Peter pointed to the store on the other side of the road, and they crossed the street before the pedestrian light came on, earning a few honks from a car on the road, but whatever, it was Queens, he jogged a little ahead of Mj to open the door for her during the last few steps.

She could tell immediately it was pretty much second nature for him, but her heart didn’t get the memo, and it sent weird insects flying around in her stomach. Get a grip, this doesn’t mean anything, she told herself firmly.

“What are you having? I’ll get a–”

“Strawberry, right?” Mj asked a little too quickly, and the boy looked surprised. “I’ll get coffee.”

He smiled. “Okay. Yeah.”

“I’ll go sit down.”

It was almost 4 in the afternoon now, and it was still the beginning of summer, so the sun was still pretty bright out. The light was falling perfectly through the glass of the ice cream store, hitting everything it touched softly, the loud noise of the Queens streets barely audible from inside the store. Peter was standing by the counter, waiting for the ice cream to be served. They’d been in this spot before. One time it was hotdogs, several other times it was pizza, one other time, burgers. They’d been in this situation too many times for Mj to be thinking too much of it, yet there she was, wondering if this day was any different, wondering if Peter thought about it like she was. It was hard not to, looking at him. He was pretty, especially in today’s ensemble; a perfect fitting t-shirt and his nicest pair of pants, his hair a little bit messier than usual. Peter was a school nerd, and he was never really part of the cool crowd, but he was a lot cuter than anyone else around, at least to Mj.

“Here you go,” he said to her as he walked over to where Mj was sitting, sliding over her ice cream.

“Thanks,” she said without missing a beat. “I knew you had a future in waiting tables.”

Peter was smiling. “I can’t believe I used to get offended when you tell me mean stuff.”

“I don’t recall ever being mean to you, loser.”

He chuckled, pointing his ice cream spoon at her. “See?”

Now Mj was smiling. She rarely smiled at anything except Peter. It was always except Peter, in every aspect of her life. Pathetic.

“You know what, that’s actually you being quite nice to me,” he continued, watching her chuckle at that point, his shoulders relaxed, eyes obviously all happy and cheerful and very Peter. Mj had a retort prepared, obviously, but as soon as she said the words she’d forgotten them, because something else was taking up her memory, and it was the pretty ass boy sitting in front of her, looking more calm than she’d seen him in days. He had been crying a few days prior, she could tell. His eyes were swollen when he came to class, looking a little paler than he usually did. She knew it was because of Tony Stark, but she didn’t push it. She wanted to hug him, but instead, she didn’t say anything mean to him, which was pretty much the same thing in Mj’s vocabulary.

They were talking, just talking, just eating ice cream and talking, but seeing him that happy and calm made Mj happy and calm. Soon enough her feet were folded into her lap as they devoured their dessert and laughed over the dumbest stuff, talking about the most inane things, it was ridiculous how funny they found it at that moment.

It was moments like this when Mj would always wonder if he’d ever like her back.

He would always shut the small fantasy down as soon as she even conjured it up.

“I don’t even like anyone in school now,” said Peter as it came up in conversation, cleaning out his bowl of ice cream, while Mj still had a few spoonfuls in hers. “It’s been really boring with everyone lately.”

“Yeah?” Mj would respond like it didn’t matter to her.

Peter wasn’t even looking at her. “It just used to be a lot more fun if I had a crush on someone.”

Mj was looking at him. The sun was hitting his hair a little differently, the edges seeming a little more brown than they usually were, his hands playing around with his spoon. His nose was a little crooked, his eyebrows sparse, and to be fairly honest he was a regular, average-looking white boy, but man, she’d been smitten for years, and she was still smitten to this very day.

“Yeah,” she smiled, watching him, taking him all in. “I know what you mean.”

That was as far as she’d ever get with him, and she was okay with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [i apologize for the inaccuracies i'm not from new york] [feedback is welcome]


	3. the weird way mj ended up in peter's apartment

_present day _

The sunset was pretty during the early fall months, and it was always something Peter noticed when he was swinging through Queens.

It was significantly less pretty today, though, he had to admit. The image of Brad and Mj reading through some class papers, sharing ice cream in one of the public parks was ruining it for him. A few weeks ago he was the one she was eating ice cream with.

 _I’m not following them,_ he had justified himself earlier that day as he slipped on his suit, justifying the weird feelings he’d been contracting since he noticed they were having lunch together, _this is just a dangerous part of town, and it’s my job to protect the people of Queens._

He told himself that repeatedly, but in all truth, he’d been perched on top of that building all afternoon since he had spotted them, barely taking his eyes off them. He’d activated Advance Reconnaissance mode and zoomed into them as far as he could, but to be fair, and fortunately, for him, they spent a lot of their conversation just talking about school stuff. Peter had kind of tuned them out for a little bit after a while. 

“He’s a difficult teacher, yeah, but he’s not that bad when–”

“You’re really pretty, you know that right, Mj?”

Brad’s voice from hundreds of feet away made Peter stop trying to get a ball from a rain gutter on one of the rooftops.

“What?” he whispered to himself incredulously from under the mask, stealthily crawling back up to a place on the roof that gave him a much better view of the pair. “Ah, man.”

Mj didn’t respond after a few seconds, but she was smiling bashfully, awkwardly, her hands tucked in her lap, while Brad was smiling down at her, a little too confident, a little too happy how uncomfortable he was making her. 

“Thanks,” she said after a while quietly.

“And I’m not just saying that for all your help,” Brad said in a breezy voice, gesturing towards the paper on the table before them.

Mj chuckled a little bit. “Well, it’s not big deal.”

“It is a big deal.”

“For me, not really,” Mj shrugged, and Brad laughed, pulling all the stuff on the table into his backpack while she watched. The sun was getting very low now, and Peter was having a harder time seeing whether she was happy about it or not.

Brad was the first to speak after that. “I better get home, I got training at 5:30 tomorrow.”

“Oh, yeah, okay,” Mj said, packing up her bag quickly, “me too–I mean, I don’t have–I–I also gotta get home.” 

Brad had already left his seat. “I really owe you one for this, Mj.”

She smiled. “I told you, it’s not a big deal.”

And they exchanged a few more words before they parted ways, and Peter dangled by the edge of the building, completely in disbelief he wasn’t walking her home. 

“Her house is like, six blocks away, dude,” he scoffed to himself incredulously, jumping from building to building and watching Mj walk home without a second thought in his mind.

She watched him put on her earbuds, dodging people walking in the opposite direction with ease as she scrolled through her phone, choosing a song from a playlist, pocketing it back after she did. Peter had followed her for a few blocks, halfway to her house when someone called for him on the other side of the street.

“Hey Spider-Man!”

Peter spun around, taking one last glance at Mj swerving through the alleys, before he looked at the kid who called him. He swung down from the edge of the building, landing on the pole gently and then on the pavement a few feet away from the kid and his mom.

“Can we have a photograph?” the mom asked him with a smile, the kid looking up at him in amazement, and Peter smiled at him too widely for someone in a mask.

“Yeah, of course,” he said, kneeling down to the height of the kid, putting a shoulder over him and his hands in a peace sign. The mom snapped a picture and Peter turned to the kid, giving him a high five.

He was still kneeling beside him when he spoke. “What’s your name?”

“Anthony,” he said.

“Cool name,” Peter replied, although it tugged at his heart to hear anything related to Tony again, but he continued. “So, how old are you?”

“He’s seven,” the mom said, smiling at Peter, so he stood up, “we lost him for a while during the snap.” 

Peter chuckled. “Well, same here.” Then he took a few steps back, readying to swing back to the buildings. “Keep safe out there!” he gestured to them and swung up, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, trying to locate Mj down on the streets, and something in the pit of his stomach told him there was something wrong.

“Hey, Karen, find Mj, please,” he said to his suit, and his suit responded, chiming a little before it automatically zoomed into a few streets ahead. But Mj wasn’t alone.

Peter shot his web as far as he could to the side of the building, swinging through in panic, in fear.

“Karen active Advanced Reconnaissance please,” he said, shooting webs faster through the Queens streets as his suit obliged again, allowing him to listen into the scene that was unfolding a few streets away.

Mj was being cornered into a back alley by two men, and it caused several pits of anger to rise in Peter’s stomach.

“Give me your phone or no one gets hurt,” said the man, the other one holding a knife to Mj’s side. Mj wasn’t moving.

Peter was cursing out loud now, but he didn’t realize it, the man hitting Mj in the head with so much force she was knocked to the ground, the other forcefully taking her stuff from her. Peter was closing in on them when Mj kicked the other man who attempted to take her wallet.

He couldn’t remember what he did in all honesty, but there was blood and webs and a lot of punching, and Peter was in such a panicked haze, the next thing he knew was that Mj was bleeding from her side, and that she was unconscious.

“Oh my God, no, no, no,” he muttered, trying to focus. “Karen read vitals,” he said in hysteria, webbing up the two unconscious men now, taking back Mj’s stuff from them.

His suit dinged quickly and the lady’s voice came on. “Concussion and minor injuries detected. Immediate medical care advised.”

“Mj?” he shook her by the shoulders. “Mj? Mj? Come on wake up,” he said, beginning to carry her and bring her home, swinging through the streets with one hand. She was light, thankfully, but Peter was agitated, panicked, his heart was going a million miles a minute.

“Mj, wake up, come on,” he muttered, shaking her as they swung through the city.

He’d been to her house before, and he knew what it looked like, but in the frantic haze he was in, it was difficult to focus on which one was hers. He rang the doorbell. Two times, three times. The windows were locked. No one was home.

“Shit, shit, shit, come on,” he muttered to himself, resigned and gasping for air. He looked at Mj, absentmindedly swiping her hair across her forehead as she lay unconscious, and now he could only really think of one place to bring her.

Good thing his apartment wasn’t too far by, because in a matter of minutes Peter was crawling through the window, gently laying Mj down on his bed.

“May!” he called out, a little bit calmer now that she was there, but his heart was still thudding and his body was still shaking just the slightest. The last time he panicked like this… he didn’t wanna think about it. He pulled off his mask as he rushed into the kitchen, but it was empty. He checked her room and the living room, all empty.

He didn’t know why he was panicking so much.

As Spider-Man, he was always injured in some way, usually worse than a concussion and a few minor injuries, but right now he was for more alarmed than he ever was with his own safety. He’d been on spaceships, he’d killed Chitauri dogs, he’d been choked by Thanos, but right now, he couldn’t bring himself to focus on what to do.

He took a few deep breaths first, swiping Mj’s hair out of her face again, before he turned on the light and assessed what he needed to do. There was some blood on her shirt, so he reached out and pulled her jacket off, but he couldn’t seem to bring himself to lift up Mj’s t-shirt while she was _asleep._

He backed up for a few seconds, stalling, his insides churning a little bit. She was really knocked out, her eyelids a little ajar, her lips apart just the slightest to reveal a part of her tooth. Her lashes were thick. She was pretty. God, this wasn’t the time to be thinking about that.

“She’s _injured,_ Peter,” he groaned, lowering himself by the bed and slowly lifting her t-shirt up, revealing a wound about a few inches long across the side of her lower stomach. It looked bad, like a cut, but it wasn’t too deep, and Peter had dealt with enough of this to know what to do.

He cleaned it off gently, really extra careful not to touch any other part of her skin, because she was unconscious and that was creepy. He taped some gauze over the cut, cleaning off a few more scratches she had from getting hit and falling to the floor, and just as he finished, Mj woke up.

***

Mj couldn’t tell where she was when she opened her eyes. The lighting was different, the walls, even the smell was different. Her room had a kind of lavender scent from the candles she was burning all the time. This room smelled like a fresh shower. Like a boy.

Realizing that was what made her open her eyes. What she found when she did was a little more shocking.

“Peter?”

It was unmistakable, especially because she’d spent so long admiring him and staring at every crevice and corner and detail of his face, she knew it all too well to doubt what she was seeing, but what he was wearing, and what he was doing was what threw her off the edge.

At the sound of her voice, his head snapped up to look at her, instantly backing away from her body.

“Shit,” he hissed, his eyes obviously frantic, but it surprised Mj how quick he was to react, but for the smartest guy in their decathlon team, he did the dumbest thing possible. Peter picked up a blanket and threw it over himself. He realized how dumb he was a second later. “Oh shit.”

Mj couldn’t comprehend anything that was happening, her head was thumping now, and she looked down her side and saw her shirt lifted to reveal some gauzed up wounds, and seeing them now made her wince in pain.

“What the hell happened?” she asked, realizing she was in someone’s bed. Peter’s bed. 

Oh my God, she was in Peter’s bed.

He groaned loudly in frustration, resigning to just pulling the blanket off his shoulders, and he stepped forward slowly. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I lifted your shirt, and–” he was fumbling with his words, visibly panicking, “–because you were mugged, and you got hit and got all these wounds and I tried to go to your house but it was locked–”

He was talking so much, so fast it was a lot for Mj to process, but everything he was saying was pretty much just flying out of her ears, because he was standing there, a little bit of blood on his cheek, wearing the goddamn _Spider suit._

“You’re Spider-Man.” It was all she could muster.

Peter stopped talking immediately, panic visible on his face, then he sighed, rubbed his face and sat down on the floor in front of Mj. He started out his sentences, but he never finished anything, and about a few seconds of expectant silence later, Mj decided to just speak.  
“Oh, God, I kind of knew it.”

Peter sighed again, but this time he actually did speak. “Don’t... tell anyone, okay?”

“I won’t.” Mj stared at him, still in disbelief, blinking a few times to check if she was hallucinating. She reached out to him just to check if he was actually there, not just a figment of her imagination, and he was. “I can’t believe it.”

He didn’t say anything after a while, which was probably for the best because it let Mj digest the fact that Peter, who she spent most of her goddamn days with, was an actual Avenger. It was a pretty satisfying conclusion to the question why Peter has completely shattered when Tony died, why he ran out of the classroom the one time they played the Iron Man documentary in Social Studies class.

“So are you okay?” he finally asked after some silence.

Mj nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine, I just don’t remember shit. I got mugged, right?”

The boy in front of her sighed, running a gloved hand through his hair, and Mj watched it flop around. 

“Yeah, you get stabbed, too, so I had to patch it up…” he pointed to her torso. “I had to lift your shirt.” He said awkwardly, his voice exhibiting the discomfort his face wasn’t. “I’m sorry. I just–I didn’t want to be creepy, doing that while you were asleep, but–”

“Shut up,” Mj said, although the thought of him touching her goddamn bare torso was… giving her feelings that were wildly inappropriate considering the circumstances. “I was injured, come on.”

“Okay,” he said, still awkward. God, for someone who could stop a bus with his bare hands, for a freaking _Avenger_ the boy was so damn awkward. Mj was whipped as shit. “I’m just gonna get dressed, get you an aspirin,” he said, beginning to stand up. “You hit your head pretty hard, too.”

When he was gone, Mj finally took a deep breath, letting everything sink in. It was all too fast, too many things happening while she wasn’t even conscious, and now she had to deal with everything she missed. She made a list in her mind of the things putting the universe out of balance for her.

One, Peter was Spider-Man. Two, she got mugged. Three, he brought her to his house, on his bed. Four, he touched her somewhere she doubts anyone ever has before. The injury wasn’t important.

The headache she had waking up did not help the fact that she could feel her head overheating as she spilled over everything that happened.

She calmed down a little bit when Peter came back into the room, the Spider suit in one hand and a glass of water in the other, but now he was in a t-shirt and sweatpants.

“Here you go,” he said to her a little awkwardly.

She sat up, wincing just the slightest in pain from the wound at her side. “Thank you,” she muttered quietly, drinking the tablet and chugging down some water. She set the glass down. “Sorry I’m on your bed. It’s a little weird.”

“No it’s not,” Peter said a little too quickly, it surprised even Mj. “No one’s home anyway.” 

Mj blinked at him.

“No, I just meant that no one could walk in and think… stuff.” 

He was so awkward, but God, her feelings were all over the place now, looking at him in his sweatpants and his old t-shirt, his hands clasped together stiffly, his eyes visibly a little nervous about the whole situation they had going on. 

Mj wanted to kiss him so badly.

“I think I should go home,” she said instead. She didn’t want to. 

“You could stay here for a while, it’s really okay,” replied Peter. “I can cook stuff if you’re hungry.”

Mj was still feeling a little awkward, but she smiled. “You can?”

And he could, it turns out.

Peter offered her some stuff of his to wear so she could get a little more comfortable, then left her in his room so she could change while he whipped something up for the both of them. She came out a few minutes later in his sweatpants and _I survived my trip to NYC_ t-shirt, the kitchen smelling good.

“Please don’t say anything mean,” Peter said, gently laying a plate with a grilled cheese on it gently in front of Mj. “This is the best thing I know how to make.”

She couldn’t help but smile. Usually, she could. She could turn on the sleazy eyes and pretend that not everything Peter did could make her smile, but tonight, she couldn’t fight the smile muscles, or the crumbling she felt in her stomach watching him cook her a cheese sandwich in his sleeping clothes. 

He looked extra soft tonight for someone who fought of two armed guys and saved her from a mugging.

“Thank you,” she said to him. “Not for this. I mean, also for this, but mostly for saving me and stuff.”

He looked at her with beady eyes, rubbing his own hands even though the apartment was actually rather warm. “You really have to stop thanking me for that, it really was nothing.”

Mj was eating now, chewing through the bread and the cheese, and she wasn’t going to lie, it wasn’t that bad. Even if it were, she’d devour it whole just because it was Peter who made it for her.

“So,” she began to say, trying to sound chiller about the whole situation while her mouth was still full of bread, “Spider-Man, huh… who else knows?” 

“Just Aunt May and Ned.”

She chews on the sandwich he made for her some more, Peter just watching from his seat across the counter, and then she spoke again. “I’m about to really go wild with these questions, Peter.”

“If I answer them,” he said kind of quietly, kind of awkwardly, “will you just stay here for the night?”

Mj doesn’t want to say yes just yet. Her heart jumps, though, and it jumps wildly, she feels it in her throat and in her stomach and, God, does she feel it her chest. In her head she was crumbling to pieces, turning into dust again, but she just shrugs at the beady-eyed, soft white boy before her.

“I’ll think about it.”

Peter chuckles. “Alright, ask away.”

And she does. She finishes her sandwich rather quickly, just rapid-fire shooting questions and questions about him, about stuff he’s done. She learns he makes his own webs, that he can crawl up walls, that he was just as afraid as everyone else was during the incident in Washington. They talk for hours on end at the point, and Mj listens to him, because it was absolutely her pleasure to. They move from the kitchen to the living room, where Peter pulls out his phone and they watch CCTV footage of Spider-Man catching buses and preventing calamities. He shows her the video diary he made when Tony asked him to go to Germany, and Mj laughs far too much in his expense, but he doesn’t seem to mind. 

It was one in the morning when they finally calm down laughing, and Mj just feels calm beside him, sitting on the couch, the TV volume turned to low. 

“I didn’t even show Ned that video diary, you know,” he says quietly, and Mj realizes he’s half asleep now, and that through the course of the night, they ended up sitting so close together, she could smell him, but this time, her heart isn’t racing. It’s calm, and she’s tired.

“It’s embarrassing for you,” she says back, just as quiet.

Mj glanced up at Peter. His eyes were closed, his mouth agape, a soft sound coming out of it. God, he was so pretty. He had a small cut on his cheek, his hair a big tousled mess, but Mj could stare at him forever. 

There was absolutely no way she could leave now.


	4. the one time peter almost told mj he was spider-man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this isn't a continuation of last chapter, this is a time jump to seven weeks prior! anyway, this is just kind of to feed my peter/mj heart. feedback appreciated<3

_seven weeks before_

Peter was glad he was wearing the mask right now, because he could feel the tears coming.

His nostrils, his throat, his tear ducts told him so, just because he saw an arc reactor replica on the front of a comic book store. _Proof that Tony Stark has a heart_ , it read.

Reading it made him feel like a sponge dunked into a cold ocean, the force in his chest heavy even though nothing hit him, and suddenly, he couldn’t breathe. 

“Hey Spider-Man, could I get a photo?” someone was calling out to him from the street, but he didn’t hear. In fact, he couldn’t hear anything other than Tony Stark’s echoing voice, as he attempted to shoot his web and just try to get away, far away from there.

Except there was nowhere he could go where the pain didn’t exist.

He pulled his mask off hastily when he finally found himself alone on one of the rooftops in the city, trying to breathe, gasping for air like it would help the pain, but as he let himself collapse against the roof all he could do was start crying.

“Ah, shit, no, no, no,” he groaned to himself, the tears coming hot and fast, his breathing coming back in short, sporadic spikes.

For a while he just let himself be. He let him curse out the world that gave him Tony Stark but took it away too damn fast, he let himself replay the night of his death over and over and over, he let himself apologize to the wind, hoping it would reach a dead man’s ears, until his tears were dry and he just lay there, tired, the personification of a wrung out rug.

The night’s job wasn’t done, but God, he was weak. He kept thinking that maybe the world would be a little more generous tonight and let the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man rest, all the way as he swung back to his apartment.

He let his suit fall down to the ground as soon as he stepped in, pulling his mask off and throwing it in the pile on the floor, and Peter just fell into his bed in his boxers, running his hands through his damp hair and his swollen, tired face, absentmindedly reaching for his phone.

He scrolled through it, meme after meme, viral video after viral video flooding his timeline, and it usually helped him, usually induced enough endorphins for him to shove the image of Tony Stark’s death into a small box in the corner of his brain and move on for a while, but tonight it wasn’t like that.

He felt like drowning. He felt like the surface of the water was thousands of feet above him, the shore, millions. 

It was a small ding from his phone that pulled him out of it, just for a little bit.

_Mj sent you a video._

Mj. Mj. 

He didn’t know why, but a lightness in his chest touched him for a little bit when he thought of her, and Peter clicked on the banner as soon as it popped up on his screen. It was a cat video. He didn’t watch it.

Instead, he typed without hesitating.

_Hey Mj._

Her reply came in seconds. _Did you watch hahaha_

Peter typed faster. _Yeah,_ he lied. _Are you at home?_

To that, she didn’t reply as fast, but she finally did just as the boy pulled on some clothes.

_Yeah… weird_

_Can I come over?_

He didn’t feel the weight of those words as he sent them, with his mind still buzzing and whirring and all over the place, but he should have, and he should’ve realized the very real chance it would make his friendship with Mj really weird. He was lucky she said yes.

_You’re weird… here’s my address_

_I’m on my way_

The intent behind his proposition was unclear, even to him. His chest was still a little numb and his limbs were still a little shaky as he walked towards the address she gave him, swerving along the city on a school night.

Peter had forgotten he’d been sobbing his heart out just minutes before, but the moment Mj opened her door for him, he was reminded rather quickly.

***

She has absolutely no idea what this was about, but when Peter asks to come over at nearly 10 in the evening, just as she was about to start a long night of reading, Mj doesn’t say no.

“You look like shit,” is the first thing she tells him when the doorbell rings and she opens the door to a Peter with swollen, red eyes and damp hair. “Come on in.”

He smiles, like she expected, but there’s something wrong with it, something insincere and distracted, and she knows it because she spent way too much of her time studying his face.

“Thanks,” Peter said anyway.

“Are you okay?” she asks closing the door behind him. He doesn’t study her apartment, his eyes don’t dart around the mess of stuff or the clutter on the table. Peter’s eyes, his tired, puffed up eyes, stay on her, and she wasn’t going to lie, it worried her a little bit.

He closes his lips tightly before visibly panicking and looking away. “I’m sorry, Mj, I don’t know even know what I’m doing here,” he huffed, his body looking like he couldn’t stand still or he’d explode. He probably felt that way, too. “I just… I just saw your message and I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go, but now I’m not sure I should’ve gone here, and I’m sorry, I–”

Mj doesn’t know what to make of this.

The most worried he had ever seen Peter was when he bust into the classroom on finals day 20 minutes late with a little bit of blood on his cheek.

The most in pain, was probably when Mr. Dawson started playing Tony Stark’s movie in history class.

This, she had never seen before, and it scared her a little bit not to know what to do. Peter Parker, was in her apartment, panicking – never in a million years did she ever see this happening.

He kept talking, incoherently now, his eyes looking like they might just give in again, so Mj finally spoke.

“Hey, hey,” she said, quietly, her voice so soft she didn’t think she’d ever spoken to Peter like that before. “Hey, Peter, it’s okay, it’s okay.”

She touched his arm, awkwardly, a bit unsure, but she knew it was okay when he stopped talking and breathed for a goddamn change. God, he was so chaotic.

“Come on, it’s okay. Seriously, nothing’s hurting you now. You’re okay here.”

Peter rubbed his hands against his face, his red eyes. “God, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Mj said, putting her hands a little awkwardly on Peter’s arms. “I promise, don’t worry about it. Calm down.”

He looked up at her, and that’s when Mj realizes how close they’re standing, how near they were, and so she lets go and steps back just a little bit, just enough to let Peter know she’s still there.

“We’re… we’re friends, right?”

“Of course, dummy.”

They stay like that for a while, because Mj isn’t sure what he needs, but the longer they stayed like that, the more she could see how tired he was, how hurt he was. Any kind of curiosity she had in the beginning was gone now, she just wanted him to feel okay.

Then she hugs him, and before she even encloses her arms around him, he hugs her back, and that’s how Mj knows that _this_ is what he needs.

She could feel his deep breathing against her body, his shaking limbs, his unsteady heartbeat. He’s a furnace, too, and she feels his heat under the layers of clothing between them, warming her up, because it was a bit of a cold night, and Mj doesn’t really wanna let go.

“You don’t have to explain if you don’t feel like it,” she said softly, her body still against him, “but you can stay here if you want.”

“Okay.” His voice is a whisper, but it’s enough for Mj to know he didn’t regret coming over.

They don’t let go for a few seconds, but when they do, it’s a quick motion, and the girl backs up a little too far for anyone to believe it was casual.

Peter looks calmer already. 

“You want something to eat?” she asks in a voice that isn’t as soft anymore, and she’s more comfortable using it, and she walks a few steps away from him into her small kitchen. Peter’s eyes follow her, and he stands uncomfortably in the middle of the room. “I haven’t had dinner,” she lied, “so I was about to make myself something anyway.”

“Are you going to poison me?” Peter asks, and Mj whips her head around to look at him, smiling.

The beady-eyed boy is back in his body and she can see it, as he’s standing awkwardly again, clasping his hands the way he does. It lifts a burden off her shoulders, it lets her know she can stop walking on eggshells and be a little mean to him again.

She shrugs. “I don’t know, I’m still deciding which substance I should use.”

“I could just get us some take out, if you want…”

Mj narrows her eyes. “You know I’m not actually going to poison you.”

But that’s exactly what they end up getting. Possibly because there wasn’t much in Mj’s fridge, but most probably because Peter was a little skeptical of what Mj was actually going to do. He doesn’t bring it up or question it for the first few minutes after walking back in the door, with their food in one hand, or when they sit on the couch watching the conspiracy theory documentary Mj likes, but she knew she was right in her suspicions when it’s an hour later, and he asks about it.

One of his feet are bent up underneath him, the other sprawled out comfortably by the foot of the couch, and he looks at her.

“Mj, have you ever really poisoned anyone?”

Mj’s chewing through her fried dimsum but she still chuckles. “I knew you were thinking about it.”

Peter looks at her like, _come on, man, don’t make fun of me, I’m innocent and pure._

“No,” she blurts out as she swallows her food, still giggling at him, looking at the sincere boy sitting beside her. Sitting really close beside her. “I was joking, come on, Peter.”

“Cause, like, remember that thing last year? When, like, the entire lunch period got food poisoning and they had to have these FDA guys come to school?”

“Yeah?”

“Ned told me it was probably you, cause you were talking about how annoying everyone in school was and stuff.”

Mj had to grin as Peter looked at her, shoving some more fried rice into his mouth. “I like that rumor, maybe we should keep it that way.”

Peter was still chewing his food, looking thoughtful. “You know, we’ve been friends for years but I kind still don’t know a lot about you.”

 _Coming from you, who mysteriously disappears 50% of the time?_ was Mj’s first thought. Instead she narrowed her eyes.

“If you make me sign a slam book I–”

“You should sign a slam book.” Peter’s eyes were wide with enthusiasm.

“Okay, I’m _really_ going to poison you now.”

It took so much power in Mj not to giggle or smile whenever he just did the dumbest, most Peter-like things and asked the most sincere questions, but as the hours ticked by, she was starting to fail in her attempts to suppress the sheer happiness he was giving her. When she smiled, he did, too, it wasn’t a bad exchange. The circumstances that led to him being there, on her couch were weird but she’d forgotten it, they both did.

It was that night she realized that she had spent so many days and months and years studying Peter Parker, learning about the curvatures of his face, his nervous ticks and the degrees by which he laughed, but she was still so far from knowing him completely, still just inches below the surface of what was a deep sea.

She learned that his favorite ice cream flavor was strawberry, he wasn’t fond of the rain, and that he would rather get buried alive than drowned. (He freaked out a little bit when Mj asked this.) In exchange she told him her least favorite book was Lolita, she preferred gummy worms over chocolate, and that her lifelong dream was to dismantle the patriarchy. 

“Cool,” Peter nodded. “Maybe I could help, give out flyers.”

That made Mj smile, and her insides quiver.

For hours, it seemed like it, they sat on the couch, Peter moving from his feet on the floor, to the couch right next to her, to putting them on the headrest with his back on the seat, while Mj watched, eating more than her fair share of food, learning about each other through stories and laughter.

It was nearly two in the morning when Mj showed him a baby picture of her covered in mud, and when she learned that that he was orphaned, couldn’t use chopsticks, and that he had never been to the beach.

“What?” Mj snorted. “Really?”

“Well, we live in Queens.”

“That’s lame.”

“Maybe we’ll get to go,” he said casually, and Mj looked up at him, her skin crawling, her heart jumping into theories before he could even respond.

“What?”

He looked up at Mj too, finishing off the last of his fried rice. “Like on one of our school trips or something.” His expression was telling her that he was thinking nothing of it, that his mind was so far away from where hers was, and she nodded, feeling like a clown.

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

They fell silent for the first time in hours, the only sound in the room the conspiracy theory TV show and the voice in Mj’s head telling her _stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid._

At this point they were sitting with their legs crossed underneath them, their backs against the arm rest facing each other, in a distance that wasn’t so awkward a few minutes ago but seemed a little too close now. It was a good angle to observe him from, and that’s what Mj did, very discreetly, watching his eyes dart around, his hair still all messy. 

Her hands were itching to touch it, but she didn’t have the courage. Or the ascendancy.

“I have a good one,” he said quietly, like he was contemplating whether he should tell her or not.  
“If this is a lame fact, I’m kicking you out.”

“No, I mean, I–” he said, stumbling over his words. “I don’t think you’ll believe it, it’s kind of weird.”

Even when he was weird and nervous he was pretty.

God, Mj really needed to get a grip.

“You know how I’m like disappearing all time and–” he started, his eyes up at her now, and Mj tried her best to focus on the words, but it was a little difficult when you had a boy like this looking straight at you. “Oh, you know, this is just a little too weird, I’m not telling you.”

She wanted to push, her eyes still expectant, but she didn’t.

“Okay.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

It didn’t feel weird even though they both stayed quiet for a while, and they shifted around the sofa trying to get a little more comfortable, watching the conspiracy theory because it was the only thing making a sound now.

Peter was sitting down with one leg on the floor, the other bent on the couch, while Mj’s back rested on the arm rest, her legs crossed so they just touched Peter’s thigh. She was comfortable like this, feeling his warmth and his presence, her breaths getting slower and slower as the night progressed in the same pace, the same energy. By the looks of it, he was comfortable too.

It was in that position that he spoke again, looking at her.

“You know you’re one of my closest friends, right?”

She smiled. “You know you _are_ my closest friend, right?”


	5. three bags of gummy worms

_present day_

“No, May, I swear, it was nothing.”

“Come on, Peter, I understand, it’s nothing to be ashamed about, the curiosity and exploring your bodies, it’s a perfectly–”

“But that wasn’t what that _was,_ I promise.”

The conversation muffled by the walls was what woke Mj up the next morning, and she curled into the blankets just a little more before the talking continued, opening her eyes to Peter’s room for the second time.

“Peter, don’t worry, I’ve been there, I know what that’s like, I just want you to be safe.”

“ _May_ ,” Peter’s voiced pressed on, “we’re just friends.”

“Do you need condoms? Because I–”

“No! No. Please. I don’t even like her like that.”

There was silence that followed.

She heard it loud and clear, like a painful wake up call she wasn’t ready to get at 7 in the morning. Of course Peter didn’t like her. When was that ever in question?

The room was cold, but the boy’s bed was soft, and it was a little hard to stay comfortable in it after what she heard. She didn’t want to move yet, though, because her body was in pain, and it kind of hurt to breathe.

It was the first time she was taking in Peter’s room, and God, she couldn’t lie about this to herself, it wasn’t how she was imagining at all, and yes, she’s been crushing on the boy since he was skinny, she definitely had been imagining being in his room. The air is much different than she thought it would be, the decor a little less loud, the clutter, a little more than she was expecting. It smelled like fake pine cone scented stuff and laundry detergent, and it was colder, much more well-lit than she was expecting. The walls were decorated with some sports stuff she wouldn’t have cared about if it wasn’t because it was in Peter’s room, and there were a few Avengers figurines on one of the shelves. His closet was messy–she could see because the door was ajar, and there was some unfolded laundry on what looked like his desk.

If she wasn’t so hurt about him saying he didn’t like her _like that_ , she would’ve looked around and felt the weird insects buzz around in her stomach again. Instead, she just looked around, and by the time she was done, all she could hear was the ticking of the clock and the noise of the Queens streets below.

“Hey.”

Peter was peaking through the door now, looking at Mj, realizing she was awake. She wondered if he knew how much of the conversation she’d heard, but she decided not to bring it up, because she didn’t want to talk about condoms either.

“Hey,” she said, almost smiling at the sight of him.

She almost forgot for the few minutes since she woke up how smitten she was, but seeing him awkwardly standing in his own doorway was a good reminder. His hair was all fluffy, his clothes a little creased from sleeping in them. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen him after waking up, but it was the first time in a while, and God, it really wasn’t her fault she was whipped as shit. 

_Look at him_ , she thought to herself. _Look. At. Him._ Brad Davis didn’t hold a candle to him.

But they don’t speak much that morning, even though Peter tries to carry a conversation, as awkward as he was. The comfort that was there last night just wasn’t there anymore, and Mj just collects her stuff as fast as she can and heads out the door.

“Maybe I should walk you home,” he says as he trails behind her. “The last time you walked home alone it didn’t… go well.”

She chuckles at this. “I can only get mugged so much, Peter. I’ll be fine.”

Before she can turn to leave, Peter calls out to her again. “Mj,” his voice kind of lower, kind of serious, and she listens. “You can’t tell anyone about… you know.”

“No, I’m telling everyone at school.” She was joking, and it was obvious, but Peter’s face contorts into worry so fast, she speaks again before he could. “I’m _kidding,_ come on, Peter.”

“You promise, okay?”

“I do. I promise.”

And she means it, a little for her sake, too, because in all truth, being one of the only people who knew about his little nighttime hobby–God, that sounded awful–made her feel all warm and trusted and chosen. Like now, she was granted a key to this part of him no one else knew.

He texted just as she was walking on the sidewalk, her apartment looming into view.

 _Text me when you’re home. Sounds weird but I would really like to know you didn’t get mugged again,_ he said.

It was a sick thought, but Mj caught herself thinking that at least if she did get mugged again, she’d get to spend another night at his place.

***

She was alone. It never used to embarrass her, and everyone was definitely used to her sitting by herself during meals, but that wasn’t the point. Brad stood her up, that’s what was so hurtful, and not even because she was eager to spend lunch time with his boring ass.

“What’s with you and Brad, anyway?” Ned asked her earlier that day in the middle of shop class, the sound of hammering against wood making sure no one else was hearing their conversation. It was the one class they shared without Peter.

Mj didn’t want to answer anything she didn’t want him knowing. “I don’t know. He just asked me to have lunch one day.”

“Do you like him?”

She didn’t have to think about it. “No.”

“Then why do you hang out with him?”

“I don’t like you and Peter either,” she said, reaching for the hammer, and Ned handed it to her. “But I still hang out with you guys.”

That was a lie. From the thousands of students in Midtown Tech, they were pretty much the only people Mj liked, most of her interactions with anyone else was just tolerance. Sometimes not even, like the one time she punched a girl in the locker room for calling one of their classmates a racist slur. She didn’t like either of the girls, but one of them was intolerable. She didn’t even get detention.

So it kind of confused her why she couldn’t say no to Brad everytime he texted, even when the alternative–something she liked a lot better–was walking towards her just as she and Ned left the class for lunch.

“Hey,” Peter said to both of them. He had showered and changed since Mj last saw him. His hair was laying a little flatter than it was that morning. The memory of everything that happened last night made ripples in Mj’s stomach. “Are you having lunch with us?” he asked her, looking at Mj with a little bit of awkwardness and knowing. 

She wanted to say yes to him, and she should’ve, but God, the past few days brought out the weirdest things in her, and all she could think about, looking at Peter’s gorgeous face, was that _he didn’t like her like that_. Mj knew that Brad did.

“No, I’m having lunch with Brad,” she replied, after the longest 2 seconds of her life.

It was a weird expression that came over Peter. Something a little like confusion, but more like hurt, and Mj thought she’d relish in it, but it just hurt her back.

Now, she was alone, because his stupid jock ass texted her five minutes before the bell rang to end lunch period that he got stuck in training. It didn’t even bother her that she was alone, it kind of hurt her ego more than anything else, send the wrong message to the boy she actually liked that there was someone else she’d rather hang out with than him.

 _I don’t like her like that_.

Well, now he thought she didn’t like him like that either. That was the farthest thing from the truth.

They had decathlon practice that afternoon, and Mj trudged her way up to the Mr. Harrington’s advisory room after her class, her mind still a little boggled, even though petty stuff like this was usually behind her. Things were a little more simple when Brad wasn’t in the picture. She liked Peter, Peter didn’t like her. End of story. Now there were muggings and late nights and sleeping on Peter’s bed, for Christ’s sake.

“Hey everyone, sorry I’m late,” she said in her typical deadpan as she entered the room, her eyes immediately falling on Peter Parker, of course. Her eyes were used to searching for him before anyone else in the room after years of crushing on him, after all. He was looking back up at her, staring at her as she chose a seat near Ned, because he was the less annoying of the two when it came down to it. Besides, she didn’t think she was ready for more Parker, she was still a little overstimulated with the wild ride that was everything that happened to them over the course of 24 hours.

Practice went on as it usually did, with Mj eventually drilling everyone with practice questions, people getting competitive with it. They’d usually have bets, little games and dares with each other over who gets the most answers right, or who answers fastest, but today the energy was different.

“Alright, when was the Liberty Bell first rung?”

Flash was the first to answer. “August 1752!”

“No, dumbass,” Mj said.

“July 1776?” answered Yasmin.

Mj nodded. “Yep.” She shuffled the cards in her hands. “Okay, next, who was the–”

“Michelle?” Mr. Harrington had interrupted her in the middle of her question, and she would’ve yelled at him if he wasn’t the teacher. “Can we have a minute?” he asked, then faced the rest of the team. “10 minute break time, everyone!”

Mj hopped off the front part of the platform and walked over to where Mr. Harrington sat, hovering around him just a little bit to let him know she didn’t want to be talking to him. She knew she was looking like a moody teenager, but right then, that’s exactly what she was.

“You alright?” he asked. He was concerned. Mj just wanted it to be over with. Go home, take a nap. Today was a drag, and she didn’t want any of it.

“Yeah, just a little tired.”

“Alright,” he said, “let’s just finish this part of the review book and call it a day.”

Mj didn’t really care, but she thanked him anyway, and took a seat on the floor, pulling a book out of her backpack. Usually on their breaks, she’d do the same thing, but she’d wait for Peter to annoy her–usually he did–but this time, she just wasn’t in the mood. Like she was on auto-pilot.

“You alright?” It was Peter who asked. She didn’t respond. He tugged a bit of her hair, and she regretted wearing it down today.

“Hey.”

“I’m reading,” she said dully. “What do you want?”

“Nothing, just… are you okay?” His voice was softer than usual, a little less playful, and Mj wondered if his Peter tingle, or his Spider Sense or whatever caught onto the fact that she wasn’t really having the best day. She could usually look at him when she wasn’t, but right now, her feelings were a bit of a mess.

“I’m just tired. And now I’m really annoyed.”

Ned was playing a game on his phone. “Yeah, Peter, you’re really annoying.”

“Hey!”

“I’m getting really tired of you, Peter.”

“Take that back or you’re losing that round.”

Mj ignored both of them, and opened her book again, sucking in the words because she was a little bit jaded with everything else around her, a little annoyed with everything going on. She went to the bathroom, and back, drank some water, read some more, her mind a little hazy, and just waited for the period to be over. When it did, she practically sprinted out of the room, barely saying goodbye to her friends, and walked home. 

She had a lot to sort through, a bunch of homework to do, but all she wanted was to nap, even though she had pretty decent rest in Peter’s bed that morning. She felt like an overheated laptop, and she just needed to be powered off for a while before she could really function again. Maybe it was the concussion.

Her dad still wasn’t home when she got there, which means there was no food around.

She unwrapped a protein bar as she walked upstairs to her room, stepping out of her shoes and pulling on a fresh t-shirt and shorts, drawing the curtains and shutting the lights off, finally feeling relief in the fact that she was going to get to doze off for a little while.

Mj reached out for her bag and looked for her phone in one of the pockets.

There were three bags of gummy worms jammed underneath it, beside her pencil case and calculator.

Her heartbeat raced a little bit.

 _Gummy worms?_ She began to type, her body waking up a little bit, with only one person she thought of sending it to.

Peter replied a few minutes later. _You told me you liked them._

_When did I tell you that?_

_When I came over a couple months ago and accidentally crashed on your couch._

She didn’t remember telling him. It surprised her to think that he did.

 _Thanks,_ she decided to say, instead of anything mean.

Peter replied within the next second. _You just seemed to have a bad day._


	6. why mj called peter in the middle of the night

_present day _

“Was that Elon Musk?”

Pepper laughed.

“Yes, Peter, he just dropped off a few things we needed,” she said. “I forgot what, we’ve been so busy these days.”

“No way,” Peter mutters, facing the older woman again. “You guys just have Elon Musk dropping in every now and then?”

“Well, it’s not a big deal,” she replies, “he’s no Tony Stark.”

It had become kind of a regular thing now, for Pepper to call the kid up every now and then, ask him to come visit her when she was in town since she was always flying out. Once it was to go through a bunch of stuff in one of the R&D rooms, once to give him the designs Tony left unfinished on new Spider suits, and the rest just to check in. They even went shopping once. Today, Happy picked him up from school in a 2019 Audi, and it was pretty cool to watch Flash stare in awe as he rode off in it.

“So where’s Morgan?” Peter asked, playing with a little abacus display thing in Pepper’s office. She was signing a bunch of papers, all very official-looking.

“She’s annoying Bruce today,” she said, smiling at the kid. 

“Aw, she could’ve been annoying me.”

Pepper laughed. “We’ll be back in New York in a week, actually, you should drop by the HQ and maybe Morgan will finally stop asking about you.”

“No way,” Peter grinned. “She’s been asking about me?”

“Yeah,” she replied, finishing writing something on a small piece of paper and standing up. “You wouldn’t _believe._ Come on, let’s go downstairs, get something to eat.”

Peter followed her as they left her office, watching as she gave the signed papers to her secretary with a smile. “That’s so cool,” he muttered while they waited for the elevator.

Pepper chuckled at him. “She says you’re ‘daddy’s favorite superhero’.”

The elevator dings open as Peter’s smile grows wider, his heart warmer up a little bit, and he wasn’t gonna lie, if he were alone, he’d probably cry. Instead he smiles and doesn’t talk for a little bit, because he knows his voice would crack if he says anything else.

“What do you wanna eat?” Pepper asks when they step out of the lift into a big dining hall he’s never been to before, very few people milling around. One side of the wall has floor to ceiling windows, plants hanging tastefully, and the floors were classy gray marble, the chairs white and modern, some parts of the wall brick, most of it a smooth, clean white. The menu isn’t printed or written, it’s displayed, floating in the air, because of course, Stark Technology.

“I’ll have a sandwich?” Peter asked.

“A sandwich?” Pepper asked, an eyebrow raised, as she walked towards the counter, her heels tapping against the marble floor. “Come on, we’re not in a high school cafeteria.”

“Uh–”

“I’ll order for you, go sit down,” Pepper said, and Peter did, not too far from the counter, and pulled out his phone.

 _Cool,_ he typed in, and then snapped a photo of the dining hall and sent it to Mj and Ned, then he flipped the camera and took a selfie with Mrs. Potts in the background and sent it next.

“So,” Pepper said as she walked over to the table a after a little bit, “how’s school?”

“It’s been alright,” replied Peter.

“You got a girlfriend?” Pepper smiled. “A crush?” When Peter couldn’t help but grin she continued. “Oh, so he _does_.”

“It’s not really anything...”

“Come on, tell me,” said Pepper, smiling at the server as he put down their food on the table.

Peter hesitates. He hasn’t even told May about this stuff, but it’s a little bit comforting to tell it to someone he knows Mj won’t really be able to talk to. “I don’t think you wanna hear about lame high school stuff.”

“Peter, I listen to Morgan talk about what some fictional animals did in the book she’s reading,” she says, poking a few lettuce leaves with her fork, “I think I’ll be okay.”

So he spills, nearly everything, from the mugging, to Brad, to how he came over a few weeks ago after a panic attack, and it was kind of nice to just talk and talk about something he hid from everyone else. He knew Pepper didn’t care that much–she was a little too busy running the biggest tech conglomerate in the world–but it wasn’t so much as finding someone who cared, it was more of just talking about things to someone who existed in a different part of his life.

“So what do you plan on doing about it?” Pepper asks, her smile amused. Peter isn’t sure she listen completely, but he doesn’t blame her.

He shrugs a little bit. “I wanna tell her how I feel. Maybe kiss her.”

Pepper grins. “Whoa there, Spider-Man.” Peter just chuckles, and he knows he’s blushing but the boy doesn’t really care, and Pepper speaks again. “You want my advice?”

“Always,” he says.

“Here’s what you’ll do okay? Listen closely.”

***

Her house is empty, and her street is quiet.

Mj lays down in the dark, eyes groggy and heart heavy, stares at her phone, the clock, the window over her desk, and she hears Brad’s voice again, over and over in her head, and she wills it to stop, but at the same time she forces herself to remember everything he said, everything that was causing her the pit of embarrassment that boiled in her stomach, that wouldn’t stop boiling in her stomach.

Her morning went off to a great start that day.

“Sorry I took longer than I expected to come home,” her dad said when she walked into the kitchen that morning, ready to just get another protein bar for breakfast, but she was very pleasantly surprised to find a whole damn feast on the kitchen counter. “I gotta leave again today, but I stocked on groceries.”

“It’s okay,” she said, “the food in school is good, anyway,” she lied. Her dad didn’t need to know Midtown Tech was feeding them poorly.

“How’s school?” he asked as she plated a few pancakes. Mj didn’t even get to answer. “I get a bit of a day off next week, we could drive to museum you told me about once.”

“The Museum of Haunted Artifacts?”  
“Yeah,” her dad smiled. “I mean, I won’t be going in, but–”

Mj laughed. “We don’t have to go there.”

The older man sighed of relief comically. “Thank God, I was afraid I’d have to,” he said, letting Mj eat while he chattered on about something or the other. Mj always listened. When she left for school, he kissed her on the cheek, and it was kind of bittersweet thinking that when she’d get home, he wouldn’t be there again, but it was fine. He’d come home again.

Class was alright, too. She got back a test in math she had aced, and a paper in history she got a 99 on, and Mr. Harrington decided to cancel practice that day as well.

It all really just started to go to shit when the bell rang to dismiss them for the day, and Brad caught up with her before she could leave campus.

“Hey, Mj,” he jogged through the hall to catch up with her. “Hey.”  
“Oh, hey,” she said. After he had stood her up a few days ago, they still had lunch together once or twice, but that was it, and she didn’t really give him the same kind of attention she used to. It didn’t really faze her, in all honesty.

“Are you free today?” he asked, walking beside her now, his hair flopping on his forehead. “I was thinking we could get some pretzels, pass by the park.”

She didn’t really want to do that. “I’m a little tired, honestly,” she lied.

“I mean, we could just go for a quick bite anywhere near your place,” he said, and Mj looked up at him. Like literally, she had to look up at him, he was tall. He had never been this pushy before, but Mj really had never outrightly rejected an invitation from him, either.

“I don’t...” she began, actually actively searching for the right things to say, which was very off-brand, since she could usually just say whatever she wanted and get away with it.

Brad didn’t even let her finish, and before they could reach the exit, he stopped walking. “I just kind of want to make it up to you,” he sighed. “You know, for not appearing at lunch a few days ago.”

“I’m over it. It’s fine.”

“Not to me,” he said, almost sternly, like he didn’t give her a choice. “Come on. I’ll walk you home after.”

She thought about it for a moment, and she thought about how much she didn’t really wanna do that, how bored she was in his presence, and how much she’d rather spend her time with some other boy she wasn’t going to name, but then she also remembered that that one boy didn’t like her, and this one did. That was the only reason she said yes.

“Alright, thank you,” he sighed, smiling. “I’ll just tell coach I won’t be making it to practice, and I’ll meet you outside in 5, okay?”

Mj could only nod, watching him jog out of the hall in the jock archetype kind of way, as she followed him out of the school in a more glacial pace.

It was a pretty day by all means, sun was still out, not too cloudy or hot, the trees just subtly rustling in the warmer wind, and a lot of students were milling around outside the building. Everyone was going somewhere, and as Mj leaned against the wall and waited for Brad to finish talking to whomever, she saw Peter walking towards her.

“Hey.” He smiled, gripping his backpack strap a little awkwardly.

God, he was adorable. He was wearing a jacket over his t-shirt today, and his pants were nice, and he seemed to have combed his hair for some reason, because it was less fluffy, and Mj’s first instinct was to reach over and mess it up. She had never, even once, wanted to do the same to Brad’s, but that was a given. She’d never like him the way she liked Peter.

“Hey, loser.”

He paused, just blinked at her for a while, and it was her genuine pleasure to have an excuse to look at him for a little longer than usual. “Do you wanna go get some food?” he asked, eyes on her. “There’s just this stuff I wanted to… like… talk about.”

Mj wanted to _cry_. “I can’t," she said quietly, like she didn't want Peter to hear it, "I wish I did, but I already kind of... already made plans.”

“Okay,” he said quietly, his hands gripping his backpack strap tighter, “then I’ll just say it here.”  
Her heart was beating fast now. If this was the thing of her dreams, if she was right about where she thought this was going…

“You’re freaking me out a little bit,” she said. “Did you kill a man?”

“No, no,” he said, chuckling a little bit like it was a real question. Mj stared at him as he struggled to find the words to say, her heart becoming a puddle of mess with every second that passed that Peter was looking at her with his beady eyes. “I've been trying to tell you for a little while."

"Yeah?"

Peter took a deep breath. "I kind of–”

“Hey, are you ready to go?”

Mj winced. Of course it had to be Brad’s voice that ruined something Mj had been dreaming of since she was 13. Panic rose to her chest as Peter looked behind him and saw the taller boy approaching, and looked back at Mj with an expression she couldn’t quite place, somewhere between hurt and confusion and embarrassment and betrayal. Mj probably just looked like she wanted to die on the spot.

“Oh, alright,” said Peter. His voice made it clear all he was feeling was defeat.

“No, no, no,” Mj started to say, taking a few steps in his direction, but he was already backing away, shooting a look at Brad and one final look at her, and it made her stomach churn in the most unpleasant way.

Brad took the space where Peter was standing. “What was that?” he asked.

Her throat felt tight, her chest heavy, and all she wanted was run after him as he disappeared into the crowd of people on the street, but she didn’t want to cause a scene, she didn’t want to have to shout “ _Peter, wait_!” like they did in the movies, so instead, she looked at the boy before her and said, “Nothing. Let’s just go.”

“Okay,” Brad nodded, smiling at her like the dumbass he was.

They walked out of campus, all the while Brad talking about something or the other, while Mj chimed in every once in a while to offer a sarcastic comment, because that was really all she wanted to offer him, the rest she wanted to share with someone else.

“So, I’m a bit of a pinch with English right now,” he said, returning to Mj after they arrived at the park, two pretzels in his hand. She took one and listened to him half-heartedly. A quarter-heartedly, even, maybe an eighth. “I’m really stressed about it, and I need it to pass, because everything else isn’t really going well.”

“What’s it about?” Mj asked.

“I knew you’d help me,” he smiled as he replied, pulling out something from his backpack after setting it down on the table. “It’s just a paper I need to do. I’m really having a tough time with it.”

“Of course it’s tough,” said Mj dully, “you haven’t even started on it.”

“I just knew you’d help me with it,” Brad said sweetly. Too sweetly. It irked her, and if she wasn’t listening a few seconds ago, she was listening now. “It isn’t too hard.”

“Okay,” she said quietly, her mind a little more focused on what Brad was saying.

“I was thinking maybe you had ideas for like, what it should be about, and maybe you knew how to really compose some of the parts, you know...” he was saying, and Mj watched him as his eyes travelled from paper to paper. “It would just really help me, because you know I’m not the best at this, but we both know you are.”

Mj paused. She was looking right at Brad now, her heartbeat racing a little and her eyebrows furrowed.

“You… you want me to write you a school paper?” she clarified.

Brad looked up at her, his eyes a little bit fearful, but it was still mainly made of asshole. “No, I mean, you could just help me with the parts I really don’t know how to figure out–”

“Like, everything, right?” Mj began to snap, remembering every lunch, every after-school date they had, her chest even heavier than it was before, but now she was pissed off, embarrassed, she was _livid_ coming to terms with exactly what this dumbass jock had been doing to her for weeks.

“I’m just not _good_ at this stuff, Mj,” he reasoned out, “and you’ve been helping me so much!”

“That’s why all you talk about is school stuff? And all the old papers you borrowed from me?”

Brad didn’t answer for a while. He didn’t need to. Mj was looking at their entire arrangement a little clearer now.

“Mj, don’t be so selfish,” Brad whined, and before he could get out another word, Mj cut him off.

“What?” she spluttered. “I’m _selfish_?”  
“You can’t be mad at me right now,” replied Brad, “you know I’ve been having a really hard time.”

But Mj was. And she knew she had every right to be.

“I’m just gonna go.”

Brad looked up at her as she stood up, but she couldn’t look him straight in the eye, she couldn’t bring herself to yell at him and tell him how exploited and used she felt, so she just left, walking for the first few minutes, but as soon as she rounded a corner, out of sight from anyone in the park, she ran all the way back home.

Mj doesn’t cry a lot.

Her mom left when she was little, and instead of crying, she stole things from her kindergarten classmates and hid them under her pillow. Her dad had a heart attack a few years ago and fell into a coma for a few days, she didn’t cry once, and instead, she read every book she had on her shelf for 42 hours straight.

That’s why it didn’t make sense for her to be crying now, but she does, and she doesn’t stop, like all the tears she didn’t shed got accumulated, and then the dam broke and the water just kept flooding everything. At first she was crying about Brad, and how much he took advantage of her, how she felt exploited for her helpfulness and her brain, and then she was crying about Peter, because God, she really liked him, and for most of the time she did, she never expected him to like her back, but then she got a chance and screwed the pooch, all because of a boy who was just using her for his grades. After that, she was just crying about everything, about missing her dad all the time, about not having a mom, maybe even a little about how they discontinued her favorite yogurt flavor, and she only stops when she falls asleep.

Her heart is still heavy when she wakes up.

Her room is dark, but the street light from outside filters in a little so she can still see in her room, and it’s cold, because she forgot to shut the windows before she fell asleep. Mj shifts in her bed, and her body is stiff, her bones cracking as she moves, searching for her phone in the dark, and she finds it in the pocket of her bag. Her eyes dart between the window and the clock.

There’s really only one person she’s looking for, and he picks up almost immediately.

"Hello?"


	7. what happens in the dark

_present day_

Mj paced around her room, her eyes tired, but her heart awake.

She wasn’t ready for this at all, and she didn’t like the feeling of not being ready. She liked having a one-up on everything, like a school syllabus, a zoo house pamphlet, a step-by-step manual of everything she needed to know before she dove into anything new to her, and that’s all she needed to know everything would be fine. 

Unfortunately, there was nothing like that for when the boy she liked since forever was coming over to her place in the middle of the night with an obscure message. (She tried googling. Nothing helpful.)

“Hello?” Peter picked up the call just a few minutes earlier that night.

Mj liked the sound of his voice over the phone. A little static did him good. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he echoed, his voice softer than it should’ve been for someone who ran off earlier that day.

“Can I come over?” she asked, her voice a little weepy now that she was trying to talk a little louder.

“No.”

“No?”

“I mean, I’m not at home right now.”

Mj sighed. _Spider-Man, duh._ “Well, can I come over… after? Like, after you…”

“No,” Peter replied again.

She’s confused. “No?”

“It’s a little complicated,” he said, and the noise of bus honking in the distance.

“Oh.”

“Maybe I could come over instead,” Peter adds after a couple of seconds. “If that’s alright.”

She wanted to yell at him, tell him that of course it was alright, that it was a thousand times better than alright, that it something her damn dreams were made of, actually, but she didn’t, and resorted to a two-syllable word.

“Okay.”

Peter didn’t say anything for a while, but he didn’t hang up either. “Don’t freak out, okay?”

“What?”

“Just…” he muttered slowly, his words still obscure. “Don’t freak out. I’ll be there in 10.”

“Peter, what–”

The line beeped at her, telling the girl that the call was cut, and she stared at her phone like it had any of the answers. That’s when she started to pace, her hands beginning to get clammy, her chest thumping so hard it seemed to be convincing her that something was wrong.

 _Don’t freak out_. That was the absolute worst thing to say to someone you don’t want to alarm.

She watched the clock as she walked around the short distance of her dimly lit bedroom, looking for something–anything–to do. She cleaned, picking up some dirty clothes and throwing them into the hamper, rearranging the books on her shelf, throwing away all the protein bar wrappers scattered on her desk, taking a few used cups downstairs to wash in the morning. She brushed her teeth again, flossed, gargled with mouthwash, practiced her smile in the mirror. She got back to her room and looked around, checked her phone, before she collapsed into her bed in worry, in tiredness. She felt emotionally wrung-out, like a metaphorical rug, after the rollercoaster with Brad, with Peter. Mj shifted in her blankets and spun around, her face coming in contact with a white t-shirt tucked underneath her pillow.

_I survived my trip to NYC._

Peter’s shirt. God, it was a relic. An artifact. Mj wanted to hang it up in a picture frame. She was pressing her face against it when she heard the knock on her window, and she rolled out of bed so fast she accidentally hurt herself on the foot.

Spider-Man was hanging outside her window, his presence casting a shadow in her room as he blocked the light coming in from the streetlamps outside. Mj slid the window open.

“Hey,” Peter’s muffled voice came from behind the mask, and he pulled it off just as he crawled stealthily through Mj’s open window, and even though Peter had told her not to freak out, when she saw the state he was in, she found it a little hard not to.

Blood on his lips and his forehead, a big opening on the side of his suit, blood seeping into the surrounding area, the red of his suit redder with his own blood. Her gut was right to tell her to freak out.

“What the _hell_?”

“I told you, just don't freak out.”

He lowered himself down gracefully, his mask in hand, and sat on the floor, wincing as he shifted into a position that hurt a little less. Mj thought he was ridiculously calm, because the sight of him, bruised and bloody and in pain made her panic, made the siren in her head go off when she stepped into unfamiliar territory. But her crush, in her room at two in the morning, bleeding on her floor? This was unfamiliar territory to her unfamiliar territory.

“What happened?” she asked frantically, lowering herself down to the floor with him, oblivious to the fact that Peter was staring at her like he wasn’t bleeding, staring at her in a way that would’ve made her heart thump with a little bit more than worry.

“Nothing, nothing, I’m fine,” he heaved out and winced, his attention returning to the open wound on his side when Mj touched the area around it. Peter pressed the spider symbol on the chest of his suit and it slid off his torso, the wound revealing itself now, blood dripping down his side. “I just got stabbed.”

“ _What_?”

“I was just saving this lady from getting mugged outside an ATM,” Peter explained, his suit sliding down lower and lower down his body, “and I didn’t realize the guys had, like, five people for back up, so I didn’t see it coming and–ow–” he shifted slightly, “–I got stabbed, but it’s fine. I heal fast.”

“What do you need? Do you need like a gauze? Or ice?” asked the girl in front of him, panicking, her mind unable to wrap around what exactly was happening. “I don’t know how this works, Peter–”

“Mj,” Peter said softly. “Mj. Mj.” He kept repeating her name in the same soft manner until she met eyes with him. “Hey. I’m fine, okay? I heal fast. Like, really fast.”

Her brain was still thumping against her skull in anxiety, in worry, but Mj nodded, forcing herself to breathe a little easier.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Peter said softly, smiling at her a little with his bloody lip. “I promise.”

Mj took a deep breath, holding her gaze with the bloody, wounded boy in front of her, and nodded, only then realizing the position she put herself in as she panicked.

She was kneeling, one of her legs bent in between Peter’s, her arm supporting her torso’s weight as she leaned forward towards him, their faces inches apart, the tension of the whole thing amplified a thousand times by the fact that Peter was shirtless, his suit bunched up just below his waist.

It felt criminal to be in that position with him, even though they were barely even touching, a little less than innocent and wholesome. It didn’t just give her butterflies anymore. This set a fire in the pit of Mj’s stomach that made her entire body heat up as she hovered over his toned, bloody, shirtless body and perfect, God-sculpt face in the dark. 

It sent an unfamiliar warmth down her thighs, a tingling in her skin just seeing how Peter was looking at her, with his damp hair messy and his eyes moving across her face slowly. Her body was in shambles, just looking at him. Was there a name for the feeling between wanting to kiss someone and nearly fainting?

“Let me, just,” Mj was the one to break the silence, “let me get you a shirt.”

“Okay,” Peter said, his voice soft, his eyes soft.

She stood up, untangling herself from the position they were in, and searched through her closet for anything that would fit him, still looking at the boy through her peripherals.

“Here,” she said when she handed him some of her clothes. Peter thanked her and forced himself up, wincing as he did, and Mj saw a few more bruises in his side she didn’t see before.

The awkward silence she didn’t realize they started having while Peter stood in all his body’s glory came to an end when he spoke.

“Do you maybe have a bathroom I could use?” he asked. “Just–I don’t mean that–”

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Mj muttered, snapping out of it, tearing her eyes away from him, “first door on your left.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

When Peter left the room, Mj took a breath deep enough to suck in everything through her nostrils. She wasn’t as panicked as she should’ve been, as she thought she’d be. 

Her crush. In her room. 2 in the morning. It was a recipe for a Mj to turn into a time bomb, an explosive ball of feelings, of nerves, but she was more than fine. Calm even.

She wondered if it was because she didn’t have feelings for Peter anymore, if she was finally jaded with his presence, his face, his energy, that he just didn’t impact her the way he used to.

“Hi.” 

Mj glanced at the door, and he stood in the doorframe, very carefully shutting her door, looking soft and a little out of place in her clothes, his face cleaned off, his hair still in a bit of a mess. Just seeing him caused her heart to murmur, her stomach to overheat.

Nope. 

_Definitely_ not over him.

***

There was difficulty in noticing anything else in the room when Mj was there.

That was something Peter was starting to notice more and more. Last week in Chemistry, Mj walked in late to class, and it made him miss the cylinder he was pouring some stuff into. The next day he almost tripped on the way to the cafeteria just because he saw Mj walking across the hall. 

Now, he was in her room, clad in her clothes, and there was nothing else, nothing else his eyes found even remotely interesting but her, her hair all messy, her profile a perfect silhouette in the dark, her eyelashes batting up and down in motions Peter couldn’t get enough of. He let himself take her in, the old t-shirt she’s wearing, the shorts. His heart was thumping.

She was so pretty.

“Hi.”

Mj looked up at him, sitting down on her bed when she realized he was there. 

“Are you really okay?” she asked quietly, her voice uncharacteristically mellow.

She was looking at him softly, the usual mean exterior she put up in school was gone, and Peter knew he was standing in front of a different Mj, a special edition, an available for a limited time only Mj.

It made his heart soft to think he was the only person who got to see this.

He was lucky.

“Yeah,” he said, matching the level of quiet in her voice. “I promise. Barely even hurts anymore.” Lie.

“Okay,” she replied, letting them stew in the silence for a bit before she spoke again. “Thank you. For coming here.”

Peter wanted to tell her that he had been thinking of coming over for hours on end that night, thinking of just ringing her doorbell with a bag of Chinese takeout in one hand so they could spend another few hours laughing while the world slept, but he didn’t.

“No, I mean, thanks for letting me come here,” he said, instead. “I just… I couldn’t go home with all these cuts and stuff, Aunt May would just freak out.”

“Well, that worked out, because I definitely didn’t.”

She was smiling, joking again, and it made Peter feel warm, like he didn’t have an open wound on his side because her laugh made a little bit more of an impact than a knife would, and when she scooted over to make room for him on her bed, he takes over the empty space next to her. It was closer to her than he thought.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi.”

He was nervous. God, he was _so_ nervous. She turned Peter Parker, a kid with super strength, into a nervous little ball of feelings, so easily, just by letting her bare knee touch his through his pajamas. Her pajamas, actually. If there was any moment to tell her how he felt, it was then, plunged in the darkness of her tiny bedroom, their faces so close, no Brad Davis to disturb him.

“Are you okay?” he ended up asking her instead. “Because you called. In the middle of the night, and…”

“Yeah,” Mj sighed, “yeah. I’m alright, just… I’m really sorry for earlier today.”

He knew what she was talking about, he just didn’t think any of it was her fault.

“What for?”

“Nothing… I just don’t really want you to think I’d rather hang out with anyone,” she said, her voice clear, her words sure, “like, more than you. I just don’t wanna hang out with anyone more than you. And I just wanted to let you know.”

Peter’s heart leaps. Like, actually leaps. His stomach is in shambles, guts all tied up. Maybe the girl he likes does like him back, after all.

“You’re kind of awkward, so I have to tell you she probably won’t,” Pepper told him jokingly the day before, and thank God she was wrong.

“Okay,” Peter replied, nodding, “so maybe we can… hang out… or something. Instead of you and Brad. Maybe we could go to the park sometime.”

Mj raised an eyebrow, but she didn’t seem mad. “How do you know we go to the park?”

“I saw you once,” Peter said too quickly, “like this one time I was just doing the Spider-Man thing. One time.” He nodded at her, like he was trying to convince her it was true, and definitely _not_ because he was actively looking for them after he slipped on the suit.

Mj was too smart to believe him, but she didn’t tug on the thread, and instead shifted her weight on the bed, her knees grazing Peter’s as she did. It was an innocent thing, but it made his breathing change sharply.

“I don’t think you’ll see us at the park anymore,” she said, moving towards her bed’s headboard and tucking herself into her duvet.

Peter’s heart skipped a happy beat. “Yeah? Why not?”

“Nothing, it’s complicated,” Mj said. “I don’t really wanna talk about it.”

She looked warm tucked into her bed like that, the corner tucked away from the glow of the streetlights, but Peter could still see her. 

“Okay,” he said. “Are you getting tired?”

“A little bit,” she said, nodding. “But you can stay here. If you want.”

He did. Very much so. And from the tone in her voice Peter knew it’s what she wanted too, and he didn’t fight. He wouldn’t dare fight it.

***

“Have you met Thor?”

“Yeah. He didn’t look the same though… He was like…”

“Like?”

“Like you know how middle aged men go through a bad divorce and they stop taking care of themselves?”

“Yeah?”

“Like that, except still really handsome and cool.”

It was 4 am now. The world was quiet and asleep, but Peter and Mj were under her blanket, laughing like it wasn’t far past their bedtime. In the hours that passed since he crept through her window, they had somehow shifted around the room and ended up under the same blanket on the same bed, watching interviews of the Avengers upon Mj’s request.

She wasn’t sure exactly how they ended up in that position, how she managed to stay calm even though the boy she’s liked forever was in bed with her, but she doesn’t mind, and he doesn’t seem to either.

“Really?” Mj made a sound between a snort and a chuckle, her head propped up on the pillows, her back resting on the bed. 

“Yeah,” said Peter, who was a little less relaxed than the girl beside her, his back still resting on the headboard, one of his knees bent outside the blanket to give Mj more of it. She didn’t even notice. “He’s like, super powerful though. He had this really cool axe, and he could summon lightning and stuff.”

“He could _summon_ lightning?”

Peter nodded. “Yeah.”

“Like, did he call to it?”

“No, he–”

“Like scream, ‘hey, thunder, bro, come down here’?”

“No, he’d just raise his axe, and be like–”

“His _axe_ would summon the lightning?”

“No, no, Mj, he’d just–” Peter started to explain but Mj laughed, entirely ignoring what he was saying, her mind fuzzy with sleepiness, and she was starting to care a little less about what they were really talking about.

They watched CCTV footage of Captain America jumping out of buildings, cellphone videos of Black Widow shooting people while on her motorbike. Mj had a lot of questions and Peter just indulged her, answering everything he could.

They swiped the screen to the next video, and it was a Tony Stark news clip, a really old one from 2010, where the man was sitting in court, looking a lot younger.

Mj glanced up at Peter’s face, trying to read his expression.

“Should I change it?” she asked meekly, trying to steer clear of anything too heavy, anything that Peter might not be comfortable with. If he started crying, she wouldn’t have a single clue what to do.

But Peter shook his head. “No, I’m fine,” he said. “I’m with you.”

“What?” She looked up.

“I’m with you. I’m not gonna start crying in front of a girl I really–” He paused, looking at her. “In front of a girl.”

Mj wanted to grab him and shake him and make him finish his sentence, but she doesn’t. All she does is stare at him, his pretty face illuminated by the glowing screen. Her attention returns to Iron Man’s news clip when his voice starts to come on.

“ _I am Iron Man,"_ Tony Stark’s voice came on, a little muffled by the recording. _“The suit and I are one. To turn over the Iron Man suit would be to turn over myself which is tantamount to indentured servitude or prostitution, depending or what state you’re in.”_ There was laughter in the crowd.

“ _Look, I’m no expert…_ ”

_“In prostitution? Of course not. You’re a senator. Come on.”_

The laughing shifted over, so now Mj was chuckling at the screen too. Her mind was at the boy beside her, though, and though he doesn’t do or say anything, she feels the energy in the room shift. A few minutes ago they were laughing over the fun little anecdotes Peter had with each member of the Avengers, but as the news clip continued to play and Tony Stark’s voice replaced the laughter, Mj doesn’t feel like joking around anymore.

When the clip ended with him putting his hands up in peace signs and leaving the courtroom, Mj shuts off her phone.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” Peter’s voice is as clear as day.

“It’s why you came over that one night a couple weeks ago, right?” Mj tilts her head up to look at him, and Peter faces her and nods.

“Yeah,” he says softly, eyes falling. “You know, he was the coolest one though. Like, the coolest Avenger.”

Mj couldn’t hold back the smile that threatened her lips when Peter started to talk about him. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, he was always kind of mean to me,” he continued, his voice dripping with affection, “and then out of nowhere he’d just give these multi-million dollar suits and stuff. And the other day when I was visiting Mrs. Potts, she told me their daughter, you know, Morgan?” 

She did. Peter had mentioned her the night he revealed himself. “Yeah.”

“She told me I was her dad’s favorite superhero.”

It’s the first time she had ever heard him talk about Tony Stark, but Mj could tell he had the most to say about him than anyone else. He goes on and on for a while, with every break in his voice Mj gets scared the boy is going to start crying, but he doesn’t. He looked happy he was finally able to talk about it, happy someone was there to listen to him, and it didn’t hurt that in the process, his fingers absentmindedly found her hair and began to play with it gently. His voice was like a lullaby and his heat was like a furnace, and the longer he talked about his stories with Iron Man, the longer Mj could just listen and relax, feel his hands play with her loose curls, and it was her life’s absolute pleasure to sit close to him, her head nearly resting on his shoulder, and listen to his voice.

When he finished talking, her eyes are starting to droop closed, the energy in the room changing again into more of a calm, quiet stillness. Sleep was in the air.

Mj shifts around under her blanket, lying on her side now, her face close to Peter’s shoulder, her hands tucked under her pillow. In the dark, she looks up at him, and Peter’s eyes are closed, his hands still in her hair, his mouth agape just slightly, and she watches him breathe for a bit, thinking about how absolutely pretty he was, before nestling back into her pillow and letting herself doze off.

“Mj?” 

His voice nearly startles her after a few minutes in silence, and it’s a cross between a whisper and rasp.

“Hmm?” She’s half asleep now, half still breathing him in, even though it’s her clothes, there’s something different about the air he brought with his presence, his warmth, and she’s in love with it.

His hand softly plays with her hair.

“I really like you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally! i hope u guys liked the little iron man 2 excerpt<3 feedback always greatly appreciated!


	8. red wine and a red-faced peter

_ present day _

Mj was pretty even when she was asleep.

Her hair was pretty, dark coils of thick curly hair strewn carelessly. Skin, freaking radiant–that was the only word that came to mind when Peter thought about it. Her face was angular and soft at the same time, her jaw a sharp angle and her chin a perfect shape, and her lips– _aw, man–_ Peter shouldn’t have been thinking for hours on end the past few days about what it would be like to kiss them but he was, and he was doing it again now.

She was so pretty, she exceeded what Peter would usually find really attractive and reengineered his definition of it, and now Mj was the only person who would ever fit his description of pretty again.

They were both under her blanket now, Mj fast asleep when he shifted around last night to lie down beside her, and in their sleep their legs somehow tangled themselves together, the girl’s toes on his feet, her face resting close to his neck.

He tore his eyes away for a moment. The longer he stared at her rested face, the more and more ripples touched his chest, and it was getting harder to suppress himself from kissing her and hugging her to death in her sleep.

The darkness was gone, and the room was illuminated by the sun now, and Peter allowed himself to take in Mj’s living quarters for the first time.

She had books on books on books on her shelf, most of them titles Peter had never even heard of, some of them he’d seen her read around school, and one of them she had used once to hit Flash on the head when he was being distracting during decathlon practice. (It was called _The Bell Jar,_ and Peter had no idea what it was about, but it was his favorite book.) Everything was much neater than he expected out of someone like Mj, far neater than his own bedroom, with all her stuff in its perfect place. Peter also knew she liked art a lot, and it didn’t surprise him to find paintings and print outs and posters of different kinds pasted on her walls, over her desk and bed and almost everywhere her could look, and he couldn’t help but feel his heart moan a little bit, because her space was all so _Mj._

This was _her_ space, and he was allowed in it.

“What are you smiling at?”

Mj’s voice was a soft, sleepy rasp, but Peter was still startled to hear it.

“Oh,” he said, turning his head to look at the girl beside him. Eyes were still squinted in sleepiness, her mouth a little swollen from sleep. “I was just… your room is nice.”

“I cleaned it before you came over,” she admitted, smiling sleepily, and tucking her head back into her pillow. Peter’s heart softened at the sight of her, at the warmth of her body next to his, the feelings of her toes tucking into his feet.

He felt warm. So warm.

And not from the outside, because in truth, his toes were cold, the window had a bit of crack in it that let the chill in, and Mj had taken most of the blanket in her sleep. He felt the warmth in his chest, in his stomach, looking at the girl he liked sleeping next to him, the soft glow of the daylight letting him see just how freaking pretty she was, how lucky he was she let him into her life like that. He felt like he belonged there, in her bed, in her world.

“I’m still so sleepy,” Mj muttered quietly, her voice still a little rough with sleep. “Do you need to get home?”

Peter knew he probably had to, before Aunt May woke up, but how could he leave when she was all sleepy and warm right next to him like that? “It’s okay,” he said. “Maybe a little later.”

Mj scratched her eyes and let her fingers fall beside her. “Okay.”

He shifted in the bed, and so they’re laying on their side facing each other, and he looked at her and wondered how she felt. He wondered if she was okay with this. He wondered if she had a burning pit of feelings in her stomach that threatened her to kiss him, that made her want to wrap herself around his warm body, because that’s exactly how Peter felt, and to even think about her being as enamored as he was, was already making his chest hurt in a way it never really had before.

Not until Mj.

“I like you too, by the way,” came her whisper a few seconds later, and her voice is so soft, but it hits Peter hard. “Like a lot. I really like you.”

“You heard me? Last night?”

“I did.”

Her eyes open now, and the air between them is so thick with suppressed emotion, with eagerness to touch, but all Mj does is lace her finger with his pinky and look at him, but it’s enough to answer all his questions about how she felt. It’s enough to let him know she wants this.

It’s the phone ringing that breaks the silence of the room, and it takes a moment for Peter to respond to it, even though he knows the ringtone is his.

Mj is still looking at him, and he can’t tear his eyes away from her, and he barely looks at his screen before he answers the call and holds it up to his ear.

“Hello–”

“Peter, where the _hell_ have you _been_!?” It’s Aunt May’s voice that completely shatters the silence, the moment, and Mj laughs as his eyes go big at the sound. “I've had to call everyone I know from school! I called Ned, he said you–”

“May, May, I’m fine, I’m fine,” Peter says hurriedly, getting up from the bed and excusing himself out into the hallway, and Mj nods with a little laugh.

“Do you think this is _okay_!? Jesus Christ, I've told you _so many times not to do this_!” Peter distances his ear from his cellphone.

“I’m just, I’m at my friend’s house, and I got into this accident, okay,” he whispered.

“You don't even _text_! Peter! It's _always_ the same thing, I always ask you to just _at least_ tell me where the hell you are…”

It goes on and on for a while, which he completely understands, and May only stops when Peter promises to be home in 10.

Mj is on her phone when he walks back into her bedroom.

It almost lifts the anxiety from his chest straight away, just seeing her relaxed, seeing her in a state probably no one else has. He feels lucky and light again for a moment before remembering that his death awaits him in the form of Aunt May.

“You’re in trouble,” she says, smiling at him as he enters.

He can’t stay upset, not when she’s smiling like that. “It’s okay,” he says, even though it isn’t, “I’m sorry. I thought we could at least get breakfast.”

Mj sits up from bed, pulling off the scrunchie on her wrist and attempting to tame her hair. “We can get breakfast next time,” she says, “I mean, if you survive this.”

Peter watches as she pulls her hair into a quick bun on the top of her head, and now he can see her face a little clearer, and his heart jumps a bit. It’s done more jumps in an hour with Mj than it did the rest of his life.

“I’ll try to,” he smiled, picking up his suit, “just so we can get breakfast.”

***

To Mj, it was an unfamiliar, alien feeling to be wanting someone’s approval.

She’s lived her entire life in the opposite way, caring very little about who liked her, who didn’t, who thought she was nice girl and who thought she was secretly selling people’s organs on the black market. (It was an actual rumor that started the beginning of that year. It wasn’t true, but Mj always made obscure responses whenever anyone asked her about it to fuel the flame.)

It was partly why she never expected the thing she had for Peter to turn into the behemoth it had become, because she never aligned herself with anything she thought he liked, she never tried to win his favor and even kind of attempted to do the opposite, and yet she slept the other day the sound of his breathing and his voice telling her he liked her.

 _Hey Mj,_ he texted her one night, making her snort, because they were already in the middle of a conversation about their thoughts on tofu. They were at that point now, the incessant texting phase, and he’d texted Mj a few minutes after he left her house that one morning and they haven’t really ended the convo since. 

_Yes, Peter_

_Do you wanna have dinner tomorrow night?_

Mj smiled at her phone screen as she sat on her dinner table, eating yogurt for dinner. She was glad she was alone, because if her dad were there he’d give her shit for smiling like a doofus.

 _Sure,_ she replied, _just as long as it isn’t tofu._

_Not tofu…….just with my aunt_

Mj did not expect that, at least not yet, not in a while. She was barely even thinking about anything in their future, since she was so distracted by everything in her present, so the question sprung up a whole lot more she didn’t want to deal with yet.

_I’ll just tell her I’m having friends over for dinner or something if you want_

_If you don’t wanna, it’s okay_

_Mj?_

She finally picked up her phone after the third text in five minutes. “Jesus, this boy,” she whispered to herself, then smiled, because these were her problems now. Being annoyed by too many texts from Peter Parker. The best problems.

_No, I’ll go, as long as she doesn’t make tofu_

He replied instantly, like he was staring at his phone screen waiting for her to respond. The image of him doing that in his bedroom, in his big t-shirts has an unnatural, embarrassing impact on her chest.

_I’ll say it’s a friend dinner thing. Just having friends over_

_If you don’t want to go it’s okay_

_I don’t wanna scare you off_

Her heart moans at this, and she stares at her phone screen, at his texts, and every worry she was about anything else is gone. He’s adorable to think he could ever scare her off, when in truth Mj would willingly sell her soul to the devil to keep him around.

_No, dumbass, i’ll be there_

And she is, like she said she’d be.

Mj had been standing in front of Peter’s apartment door for 6 minutes at that point, mentally preparing herself for something she never thought would ever happen. She spent way too long deciding what to wear earlier that day, too long trying to tame her hair, too long overthinking what she’d say and how she’d act, and it was such a stressful ordeal for her, trying to be someone likable, she would’ve bailed if she wasn’t completely whipped over Peter.

“Hey, you’re here,” he beamed–quite literally _beamed_ –when he opened the door after Mj took a few more seconds of building up the courage to knock. “You look really pretty.”

It was up until that point that Mj was so occupied with worrying about every single aspect of her visit, every single detail of what she looked like that she’d forgotten that she was actually coming over for him, upon his request, and when she walked into the apartment after seeing his face, everything seemed a little less scary.

It was hard to be scared when Peter was next to her, looking like a complete ball of sunshine. His hair was doing a bit of swirly thing on his forehead, and he was wearing a nice sweater, and Mj found it a little harder to think about anything else when he was in the room.

“Oh, oh no, oh no, oh no,” came a familiar voice from the kitchen, smoke coming out through the pathway from a source Mj couldn’t see. “ _Again?_ I burned them again?”

“I told you, she’s not the best cook,” Peter chuckled quietly a little at Mj before Aunt May came out of the kitchen. She had seen her before a couple times over the years, and Mj thought she didn't look any older than she did during their first year at Midtown Tech, and she always understood why a lot of their teachers made a big fuss over her. She also understood why Peter was so attractive.

“I’m never getting those potatoes right,” she chuckled, letting her hair down as she walked into the room, her eyes falling on Mj. “You guys want pasta? Mj, right? Pasta?”

“Yeah, hi,” Mj smiled awkwardly, the sound of her own voice making her cringe, but May doesn’t seem to mind, as she’s already looking for her purse.

Peter shifted closer to her and smiled encouragingly as May continued to talk.

“I like that small place next to Subhaven,” she was rummaging through her stuff, “the little Italian place with the…” her words trail off as she walks around the living area and picks up a few of her stuff.

“Alessandro’s?” Peter suggests.

“Yeah, that one.”

The exchange a couple pleasantries as they leave the apartment, a bit of a chilled back version of an interrogation or a background check while they walk to the restaurant, but the only time May really talks to Mj is when they’re all chomping on pasta and she’s had a few glasses of red wine in.

“You know Peter didn’t tell me you were a girl at first,” she says, wiping the nonexistent sauce from the corner of her mouth.

Mj chuckles at this. “Really?”

“Yeah, he used to always be like Mj this, and Mj that,” she bobs her head as she says it, “but he never mentions you’re a girl. I only found out the night you slept over.”

Mj smiles sheepishly, suddenly having a hard time knowing where to put her hands. “I’m really sorry about that, I didn’t–”

“Don’t apologize,” she says, waving a hand in the air, like _fuggedaboutit._ “I would’ve made you sleep over after that, too. And Peter’s a good boy.”

At this, Peter beams as he’s shoving some pasta into his mouth, and he looks at Mj, and she laughs.

“I’m glad Peter finally introduced us, you know,” May says, swirling the red wine around in her glass. “I was getting a little worried with all the time he and Ned spend together,” she chuckles, and it’s more than obvious now that she’s a little tipsy.

“May,” Peter whines through a mouthful of pasta and Mj laughs.

“No, that came out wrong,” the older woman pauses, “I’m not saying I’d have a problem with it if Peter were–”

“Maaay.”

She just chuckles some more and looks softly, almost fondly at Mj. “I just think it’s nice he has more than one friend,” then she leans closer. “But between you and me, I think he likes you.”

“May, come on,” Peter whimpers from his seat again, his cheeks getting flushed as she says this.

“Really, does he?” Mj grins, and May smiles.

‘’Yeah, and if it counts, I like you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's a little bit of a filler chapter, just some fluff scenes i find fun to write while kind of still trying to keep the story moving forward, but the next few chapters are going to be pretty exciting (the title will make sense, i promise) <3 thank u so much if youve read this far!


	9. the starry night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i apologize in advance for any inaccuracies, and for being so cliche about the painting i chose! this was the most fun to write i hope you enjoy!!! feedback always appreciated.

_present day_

The floorboards were a beautiful dark marble, the walls decorated with gold granite paintings, and the french windows revealed the New York skyline perfectly, but Mrs. Potts was the only thing Peter was looking for in the gorgeous, spacious office, and she wasn’t there.

“Hey, Ms. Secretary, ma’am,” Peter peeked out of the large room’s door, “where’s Mrs. Potts?”

The lady with her desk situated a little outside Pepper’s door smiled at him.

“It’s Ms. Adams,” she said gently, “and she rushed out for this emergency meeting with Mr. Gates a few minutes ago.”

Peter sighed, walking out of the office. “Aw, man, she was supposed to–wait, like, Mr. Gates as in Bill Gates?” 

The secretary nodded.  
“That’s so cool. But she was supposed to help me with something,” he muttered quietly, his hands gripping his backpack straps in mild anxiety.

Ever since the day he told her about everything going on with him and Mj, Pepper kind of became the first person he came to for advice on things he didn’t fully understand. May was too close to the matter, Ned was more teasing than helpful, but Mrs. Potts was always at least a thousand miles away and the perfect balance between honest and empathetic. She was the first person Peter seeked out when he realized Mj’s birthday was coming up soon.

“I want to surprise her,” Peter told her over the phone two days ago, just as he was crawling back into his bedroom window and slipping off his mask. “Like, really surprise with stuff she likes.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Pepper said but paused for a few seconds after, mumbling a short thank you to someone on her side of the line, “you’re probably just gonna get it wrong.”

“But I won’t,” Peter muttered, sitting in his bed, suit still on. “And she’ll still like it because at least it’s a surprise, right?”

Pepper chuckled at him. “No. God, kid, you’re just like Tony,” she said. “He surprised me for Christmas once with a giant inflatable rabbit. I didn’t like it.”

“I won’t give her a _rabbit_.”

“No, but you’ll give her something equally dumb.”

“That’s why I’m asking you for help,” Peter said, his voice almost a whine.

Pepper muttered something quietly to someone else. “Okay, then drop by the office at around 5 this Thursday and I’ll help you choose stuff that won’t make her hate you.”

That’s exactly what Peter does at 5 pm that Thursday, Happy picking him up from school, but Mrs. Potts isn’t there.

“Is she around?” Happy’s voice followed the sound of the elevator dinging as he walked out and onto the floor.

“No,” he sighed in response, his mind automatically jumping to a mild, worried panic. He couldn’t blame Mrs. Potts for putting a meeting with Bill Gates first before taking a teen boy shopping for his crush’s birthday surprise, but he still couldn’t help but feel resentful.

His relationship with Mj had barely even started, and he didn’t want to ruin it by giving her the equivalent of an inflatable rabbit.

Peter was already resigned to just going home and buying her a book–which he was convinced everyone was going to do already–but Happy had his eyes on him.

“What’s this about anyway?”

“Nothing, I was just, gonna ask for help on some stuff…” he muttered. _Was Happy actually offering help?_

He was. “What, you have secrets with Pepper now? Come on, what is it about?”

The elevator dinged to their floor and Peter reluctantly climbed into the lift with him.

“No,” he whined softly, “It’s nothing, it’s embarrassing, you’re not going to want to help me out with anyway.”  
“Oh, yeah? Try me,” he huffed, “I’ve dealt with some weird stuff working for Tony, I think I can handle whatever teenage complication this is.”

Peter shifted his weight awkwardly. “It’s just, um… this girl I like… her birthday is in a few days, so I wanted to surprise her.”

Happy looked down to him, his expression inscrutable, but Peter kind of already knew he was going to help him. That was the thing about Happy. He was the crankiest person around, but he would go down into a septic tank and fetch the keys that Peter dropped if it came down to it. 

“That’s it?” he asked. “That’s what you were shy about?”

“Well, it’s just you always–”

“Come on, I’ll drive you wherever you need to go,” he said simply.

It was a little awkward, a little weird to be walking around, shopping for stuff with Happy. There was always an air of seriousness and rigidity with him, and it was always so apparent to Peter that he’s someone who would refuse to get into menial high school stuff, much less care about it, but as they walked through a part of a craft store, Peter’s eyes darting around the aisles, he seemed to show a little more interest than Peter thought he’d have.

“So,” said Happy, looking around aimlessly, following the kid a few steps behind, “who’s this girl? Your girlfriend?”

“No,” Peter sighed, examining the different papers on one of the shelves. “Not yet. I mean, I wish.”

“What, so you’re just this creepy dude watching her from afar?”

“No,” he furrowed his brows in indignance, “no, of course not. She likes me too,” he said. “And we’ve been friends for a while. And she knows I’m, you know,” Peter paused as another customer passed by, then continued in lower, softer voice, “Spider-man.”

Happy raised an eyebrow as Peter slowly moved through the store. “Is that supposed to mean something or am I just going to assume you told her because you want to impress her?”

“No, Happy, I wouldn’t do that,” Peter muttered. “I saved her from getting mugged once. And she recognized me. But she really does like me, I promise.” Then he looked back at Happy before they navigated into the paint aisle, smiling at the memory. “I slept in her house once. In her bed. And we kind of held hands.”

***

Peter was being weird, and Mj was sure it was because he had some sort of lame surprise for her birthday.

She really wasn’t _that_ kind of person. The big birthday party, rented DJ, preparing their favorite clothes for their birthday kind of person. She was more of the sleep through your birthday, and wake up and eat cake kind of person, and she made it very clear to her friends at the very beginning that that was the case. 

“I don’t want to make a big deal out of it, okay?” she told Peter and Ned over lunch a few days ago. “Let’s just skip practice, go get cake and eat it at my place.”

They both agreed and promised not to, then proceeded to exchange not too furtive looks of knowing with each other, which made it more than clear to Mj that her words were going completely ignored. The day her birthday came, Peter was starting to act really weird, and after they skipped decathlon practice and bought her annual coffee cake–Mj’s favorite kind–they went up to the rooftop of her building with three forks and ate cake while playing Go Fish. 

And when Peter excused himself downstairs to ‘pee’ and left Mj and Ned all alone after a few minutes in, the girl snorted and knew she was right.

“He’s making a big deal out of it, isn’t he?”

“He’s definitely making a big deal out of it.” Ned didn’t even bother denying it.

Mj chuckled, relishing in the fact that she was right, and tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear so the wind wouldn’t blow it to her face. 

“He really said he’d ‘pee’ even though I haven’t seen him drink a single drop today.”

“He’s not the smartest,” Ned shrugged, agreeing as he put down another card on the concrete floor.

Mj looked at what it was and lay another card on top of it before cutting another piece of cake with her fork and shoving it in her mouth.

“Right? Dude has spider-sense, but like, no common sense.” Mj chuckled, putting down a card after him as Ned laughed back.

“I’m actually surprised he kept the double life thing a secret for so long, considering he’s not the smartest specimen,” Ned said, “The way he was outed to you was the dumbest thing.”

Mj grinned. “Did he tell you he tried to cover himself with a blanket so I wouldn’t see like a little dumbass?”

“No, he didn’t,” he grinned back, “and I understand why.”

This was always Ned and Mj’s favorite past time, just mocking Peter, talking about how stupid he was for the smartest kid on the decathlon team. Even before she and Peter became kind of a thing, they always clowned him and harped on him together, especially when he wasn’t around. It was kind of what Mj’s and Ned’s friendship was built on; insults and jokes on Peter’s intellect, and it was only funny because both of them knew they loved the white boy to death. Flash would get a book thrown in his face if he ever said the same things.

“I always knew Peter kinda liked you,” Ned told her all of a sudden, cutting himself another slice of the cake while Mj placed down a few more cards.

“Whatever, loser, I don’t believe you,” she said even though the thought made her smile. It was so quickly established that Mj and Peter had become kind of a thing, that Ned didn’t seem to need to hear some sort of official statement, and it gave Mj so much relief to not have to go through the awkward stuff anymore. (Not that she wouldn’t do it for Peter.)

“Like, even before the Brad stuff, he always kind–”

“Dude!” Peter’s voice cut him off, and both of them turned their heads to see him rush back up the stairs looking embarrassed. “That was a secret, come on!”

“Go back downstairs,” Mj joked, pointing to the staircase, “we’re still talking about you.”

“Yeah, don’t be rude,” Ned laughed.

Peter sat back down on the floor with them and reached over to get a slice of the cake as Ned collected and reshuffled the cards.

“Come on, I leave you guys for five minutes and I’m already getting betrayed,” he whined, still smiling with his eyes even though his tone said otherwise.

Mj took the cake from his hands and shoved a forkful in her mouth. “That’s what we do on a daily basis, anyway,” she said, watching Peter’s forced frown turn into a little laugh of understanding. The wind got caught in his hair, and Ned was talking about something else now, harping on Peter some more, and Peter responded with false indignance, his attention on Ned, but Mj was too busy watching his hair play softly on top of his head, the light turn more into a golden glow as time passed. 

_He’s so pretty,_ she thought, then carelessly added, _I love him_.

Then she paused, her own thoughts snapping her out of the relaxation she found from just laughing, eating cake with her friends on her rooftop on a nice day. It was too soon for _I love him._ It was only a few days, not even a week since he told her he liked her, and even though to Mj, it was three years of pining after him in secret, watching him grow out of his awkward phase, skinny boy with the long overdue haircut, and into the fine ass boy he was now, it was too soon. 

But God, he was so pretty, his hair finally falling still with the wind gone, all soft and fluffy on top of his head, his arms stretching out the fabric of his t-shirt, grinning as he listened to Ned joke about something Mj was too distracted to hear. 

The longer she watched the light dance on his face, the harder it was to convince herself she just _liked_ him, like he was a good book or some french fries.

The phone ringing was what knocked Mj out of her little trance, and she picked it up, reading the contact name first.

“It’s my dad,” she said kind of cheerfully, both boys stopping their conversation to look at her. “Hello?” she answered the call.

“Hey, baby, happy birthday,” her dad chimed back, and Mj’s chest lifted a bit hearing his familiar voice. She missed her dad. “Where are you?”

“I’m on the rooftop with my friends,” she said, sneaking a glance at Peter and Ned, who were talking softly now. “Why?”  
“Come down, I got a surprise for you.” She could hear his smile over the phone, and it makes her smile too, hanging up after saying okay and immediately thinking about what he could surprise her with this year. Her last, it was one of the really old versions of her favorite book, the one previous were tickets to a Van Gogh pop-up museum happening in town, but his voice was different this time, happier, more excited, so she knew it had to be something good. 

The three of them descended down the stairs towards Mj’s apartment, Peter carrying the rest of the cake for her.

“Hey,” Ned said as they took the steps two at a time, “Peter’s gonna meet your dad.”

Mj spun around and stopped in the middle of the staircase. “If you insinuate anything at all I will demote you to second alternate,” she said to Ned.

“Should we call him Mr. Jones?” Peter asked, but it went ignored as they neared the apartment door, and Mj skipped a little ahead of them to knock on the door.

It opened quickly.

Her dad grinned at her as he did, hugging her as she stepped inside the apartment, Peter and Ned following closely behind her. “Happy birthday baby.”

“Thanks. How old am I, do you know?” she asked, teasing him. It was a little bit of an inside joke with them. Last year he thought she was 14.

But the right answer didn’t come from his voice. “Seventeen, today, right?”

The air in the room changed as Mj shifted back, her heart stopping in the most unpleasant way as her mom got up from the couch. Her mom. It had been 11 years since she last saw her, but Mj knew in a heartbeat who the hell she was.

 _Mom_? She wanted to ask, but she couldn’t really bring herself to call her that.

“Dad… is this the surprise you were talking about?” Mj turned to her dad, who was watching her like he wanted a better reaction out of her, and honestly, this was the best, most respectful reaction Mj could muster for all the resentment in her stomach.  
He sighed, still smiling, still hopeful. “Yeah, she gave me a call last week. Wanted to see how you are.”

“I’m fine,” she said quickly, her heart thumping a ridiculously unnatural pace at that point as she continued to back up, until she bumped something behind her.

It was Peter, still standing there, Ned a little behind him, both of them looking confused. She had forgotten they were even there up until that point.

“You guys should go,” Mj said to them, still a little distracted. “Thanks for the cake. I’ll see you at school.”

They didn’t fight it, but Peter held eye contact with her for a few seconds longer as her dad took the cake from his hands, the boy’s eyes telling her it was okay, that he’d be there if she needed him, before they disappeared into the hallway.

“Michelle?” her mom asked a few seconds after. _Michelle. Jesus Christ._

The girl ignored her and faced her dad. 

“Dad, I don’t want to do this,” she said to him, like there was no one else in the room, her throat hurting a little bit now, not so much having her mother in the room, but more so because she felt betrayed by the fact that her dad would even let her see her. “I don’t know what you want me to do.”

“Mj, come on,” he said, looking at her like _she_ was the disappointment there.

“I’m just…” the girl stumbled with her words, but it was difficult to find the right term, the respectful way of saying _I’m not dealing with this bitch right now_. “I’m going to bed,” she continued, even though it was barely 6 in the evening. She took a few steps forward before taking a few back to take the cake from her dad’s hands and hurrying into her bedroom, trying not to slam the door. She put down the cake gently on her table before collapsing on her bed, eyes closed, forcing herself to breathe, forcing herself to push the animosity down her throat so it wouldn’t come out in the form of tears.

 _Nothing is wrong, Mj. Nothing. Listen to yourself. What’s the matter? Absolutely nothing_.

She chants it in her head like a song, she breathes, she wills it to be ok, she asks for peace, for a good birthday, and when she opens her eyes, she gets exactly that.

Up until that point, she’d forgotten everything else, she’d forgotten what day it was, and that she had Peter in her life now, and it took her a few seconds to remember it all as she stared up at her ceiling.

Every inch of it was covered in paper, all taped together to create a giant version of Van Gogh’s _The Starry night_ on her bedroom ceiling. For a few moments, Mj doesn’t know what she’s looking at, she wasn’t sure if it was real, but then she spots a small envelope hanging from the center on a piece of web and she reaches for it.

 _Happy birthday Mj!_ It’s written in scrawling, messy boy handwriting. Peter’s–she knows it in a heartbeat. _You told me this was your favorite painting that one time I accidentally slept over, I don’t know if you remember but I do. I promise the tape comes off clean. -Peter_

Every speckle of resentment, every inch of anger washes off her body so fast, and Mj lets herself collapse back into bed, the note in her hand, grinning so hard her cheeks were hurting, and lets the blue, orange and yellow of her ceiling occupy her entire field of vision. Her heart hurts from the warmth, the happiness, the sheer _love_ in her chest as she takes it in, and she feels like she’s floating now, she feels like she’s in the stars. 

She pulls her phone out of her pocket once her heart calms down from the feeling of wanting to explode, and there’s no one else she thinks about texting.

_Thank you._

His reply comes fast, like Mj knew it would. _Are you okay?_

_Better now. Thank you. It’s beautiful_

_YYAAAAYYYY Im so glad Im so glad Im so glad,_ Peter replies. _But are you really okay?_

 _Yup,_ then she adds, _you’re not at home, are u?_

_Nope. I’m at your rooftop do you want me to swing down_

Mj smiles at her phone, at her boy. Her boy.

_Through the window please_

The knock on her window doesn’t even come 10 seconds later, but Peter’s there, in his normal clothes with his web shooters on his wrists, smiling at her, and Mj lets the boy in without thinking twice.

“I’m really glad you like it,” Peter says as he lands on the floor, rubbing his hands together awkwardly (still awkwardly, after all this time), his eyes all wide and his voice so warm, it made her all soft inside, like he always did. “I was really worried, because everyone told me not to surprise you, because I would surprise you with the wrong thing and I’d screw it up, but–”

Mj hugged him, and he stopped talking. He was warm, and it felt so good to hug him, to breathe in his cologne and his laundry detergent and this whole other thing that was just _him,_ and she relishes in the feeling of his arms wrapping around her back. She needs it badly, and when his hands rub her back slowly, Mj knows whatever happens, she’s going to be okay.

Her voice comes out in a whisper, but if she spoke any louder, she felt like she might cry. 

“Thank you.”

“I like you, Mj. It’s nothing.”

“Thank you,” she repeats.

Mj hugs him tighter, and she feels his heat, his heartbeat, she feels every inch of his body, and she doesn’t want to let go.

She belongs there, in Peter's grasp, standing under the starry night. 


	10. when peter holds her hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter wants to meet Mj's dad, but she isn't as keen on it.

_present day_

Peter and Mj were having their first fight.

It wasn’t supposed to become one in the first place, but Mj was stubborn, and Peter even more so, and together, they turned an argument into a bit of a fight that spanned a few days.

“Mj.”  
“I’m reading.”

“I just wanna ask you something.”

That was how it started, with both of them tucked into Mj’s small bed, her head comfortably nestled into his shoulder as she read, Peter just chilling there, hands playing with her hair, waiting for her to finish. It had become the routine, now, Peter sneaking into her room every night after doing the Spider-Man thing, Mj reading for a little while before they got really sleepy, and then they’d talk and giggle quietly in the dark until the other fell asleep. It was usually Mj, especially when Peter did the thing where his fingers ran through her hair, but he preferred it that way, because her breathing got slower and deeper, and Peter could fall asleep watching her and listening to her sleep.

It was a good routine. Peter had a good life, but this new thing was icing on the cake, a little reward for when everything else was giving him shit. 

And maybe it didn’t hurt that he was falling a little in love with Mj, too.

“Hey,” Peter repeated, nudging her now, and she finally set the book down. Anyone else would’ve gotten slapped for it, but Peter got a smile.

“You’re disturbing me, what do you want?”

“I was gonna ask you something.”

“Well, are you going to?”

Peter looked at her, her eyes all soft and happy even though her words were mean. That was Mj. Only he got the soft eyes.  
“I was just wondering if your dad is like, strict about stuff,” he said quietly, gently, like he didn’t want her to know how much he’d been thinking about the question he was about to ask. Answer: a lot.

Mj shrugged, her feet absently tangling themselves with Peter’s. Her comfy trait. He had spent enough time and enough nights with her to know this was a sign she was getting sleepy.

“No,” she looked at him. “Not really.”

“Did he make you take, like, a no boyfriend until college pledge?”

Mj was really looking up at him now, absentmindedly shoving her bookmark between the pages of _Lord of the Flies._ “No?”

“Well… do I embarrass you?”

“ _What_? Peter, what the hell?”

“It’s just… why won’t you introduce me?” he asked, looking back up at Mj, whose face was contorted with a cross between annoyance and confusion. “I introduced you to Aunt May like… right after… you know.”

“I didn’t know I owed you.”

“No, it’s not _that_ ,” Peter muttered, pulling Mj back towards him when she started to roll away from him on the bed. She didn’t seem to mind. “I just… I don’t know why you don’t want me to meet him.”

“Because it’ll be weird, okay?” Mj reached over her bedside table and put her book down on it, switching the lamp off and letting them sink into the darkness.

“But you said he’s not like that.”

“It’ll be weird for _me_.”

“You just don’t want your dad to know I exist?”

It just started like that, arguing in the darkness of Mj’s chilly room, which was difficult, because Mj was debate head in the decathlon team and she was still tangled up in his limbs, still pressing her body against his. Peter was still disgruntled, still trying to get the answer he wanted from her when the girl yawned into his shoulder. Even in the middle of an argument, she could make him weak.

“I’m sleepy, can we just talk about this tomorrow?” she asked, her head snuggling onto his shoulder, feet rubbing against his.

 _No, no, no, no, no, you have to explain to me why you’re so embarrassed by me meeting your dad, you have to, you have to, you have to,_ his brain badgered, but he just sighed. “Okay. Tomorrow.”

He usually slept like a log when he slept next to Mj. That night he didn’t.

Peter waited for a little while before he brought the topic up to Mj again, even though it was gnawing at his chest every time he was reminded of it. Before it was a casual bewonderment, a small question mark hanging in his head that he thought Mj would indulge with an eye roll and the answer he wanted to hear, but now it was like shrapnel to his chest, the question answering itself in ways Peter didn’t like. _She just doesn’t like you that much, buddy,_ his head told him. It hurt to think so.

“I think that’s the real problem with our education system,” Mj was saying at lunch the next day as she crunched on a potato chip, Peter nodding his head. “We’re still in this industrial age system of learning that doesn’t prepare us for the skills careers look for in the technological revolution, you know what I’m saying?”

“Yeah,” Peter said. “I totally agree, but if our education system works that way, then why don’t you want me to meet your dad?”

Mj rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, you’re still on that?” 

“You said we’ll talk about today,” Peter whined.

“Okay, fine,” Mj said, her eyes not exactly falling on Peter. “I don’t want you meet him.”

“Why not?” Peter moaned, his head perched on his hand, his elbows on the table, trying to catch her gaze as she actively avoided it.

“It’s not about you, okay?” she sighed at him, glancing for a second. “I just don’t want to. It’s weird.”

“Yeah, but…” _Was a little weirdness not really worth it to her?_

Mj looked at him. She was annoyed. “I don’t want you to meet him, alright? Just leave it alone.”

“Fine,” Peter mumbled, sitting back in his seat. “Maybe I won’t come over to your place tonight, just because _I don’t want to_ ,” he said quietly, like he knew he’d regret it the very moment it left his lips. He did, and his heart thumped menacingly, knowing that the chances of Mj begging him to still come over were slim to none.

She didn’t even flinch. “Then don’t.”

It was uncharted territory to be fighting with Mj like that.

The little fights they had when they were just friends were usually over after an hour when Mj was being extra mean and Peter got extra hurt, but it was different now. He tried to catch her after last period to apologize, but she was gone before he could get to her, and he had sent her a stream of texts, all of which she voluntarily ignored.

“God, please respond,” Peter groaned as he slipped off his mask, perched on the top of a building at 2 in the morning later that night after he made his nightly round as Spider-Man when he checked his cellphone.

_Delivered._

This was a whole new level of stupid, he thought as he blinked out the bright lights from his view on top of the building, readjusting to his sight without the mask on. He was so stupid. Mj liked him, and it was so easy not to ruin things with her because of it, but he still amazingly found a way to. Peter collapsed on the concrete of the roof, checking his phone again, quite literally counting the seconds, watching as the clock on his phone turned from 2:13 to 2:14, 2:15, 2:16, and still no alerts from Mj.

And God, did he miss her. By this time last night, and the night before, and the night before, they were already in her bed, and he was watching her doze off slowly, starting off with a few slow blinks, then a yawn, then eventually her eyes would droop, and her breathing would steady a few seconds later. He _missed_ her, and all he wanted was to apologize for forcing her to introduce him to her dad and know that last night wasn’t the last time he’d get to watch her fall asleep.

His heart nearly jumped when she texted a few seconds later.

_Can you come over?_

***

It was _Peter_.

Perfect, awkward, funny, smart, adorable, soft Peter Parker, who was jacked as hell underneath his clothes, and still didn’t know where to put his hands whenever he was nervous. Peter.

Of course it was worth all the damn awkwardness in the world, there wasn’t even any question. 

Mj wasn’t really sure why she let it get that far, but Peter was getting stubborn, and she was getting annoyed, and suddenly it spiraled into him not coming over and her being okay with it.

She wasn’t.

He knocked on her window not 5 minutes after she sent Peter the text, still in his Spider suit, and she opened it, her heart already leaking out apologies as she watched him crawl on her ceiling and drop down to her floor, as gracefully as he did the nights before.

“I’m sorry,” he beat her to the punch as he slipped off his mask, and Mj wanted to kiss him as soon as she saw his face.

God, she’d missed him.

“No, shut up,” she hissed at him, slowly leaning forward to put her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. You can meet my dad. I just didn’t want it to be awkward and uncomfortable, especially now, stuff is still a little weird after the thing with my mom.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to,” she said softly, “I mean, I’ll do it if it’s what you want, I just…” _I don’t want you to go_ , she thought, but her brain stops her. It’s too corny. It cramps her style. She said it anyway, because it was Peter, who cares if it was corny if that meant she’d get to keep him. “I don’t want you to go.”

He doesn’t.

After he gets out of his suit and into some of Mj’s clothes, they spend their night the way she was used to, the way that lets her heart relax and her mind float up in the clouds. Peter was warm and he had just gotten out of his suit, so he still had that new car smell that Mj was so used to at that point, it even made her sleepy. 

Peter meeting her dad the next day wasn’t nearly as awkward and uncomfortable as Mj’s mind exaggerated it to be, most probably because he was still so jetlagged from flying in the day previous after a big job a few states away. The last thing Mj expected it to be was fun, but it was, watching two of her favorite boys in the world talk, and it didn’t hurt that that day, Peter wore a nice little button-down shirt that hugged his arms like crazy. Before he left after dinner, Peter gave her a smile that let her know how much it meant to him.

She didn’t regret it even a little bit.

“Did he do anything stupid?” was Ned’s first question when Mj was telling him about it the next day as they walked out of shop class, their last class that day, and the only one they didn’t share with Peter.

Mj laughed. “No, surprisingly. And he was all nervous when he came over, too. He was doing the weird thing he does with his hands.”

“Oh, yeah,” Ned chuckled back, “the little–” They both clasped their hands in imitation of Peter’s little nervous tick and laughed as they walked down the hall towards the entrance, where Peter usually caught up with them.

“He was really freaking out, you know,” Ned said, “he was so dramatic, he was saying maybe you didn’t like him, that’s why you didn’t want him to meet your dad.”

Mj snorted even though it made her smile. “He said that? Peter’s such a drama queen.”

“Oh, if you heard him freak out, you’d–” Ned paused, his voice dropping softly as they approached the entrance.

“What?” Mj began to ask, but she looked up at the end of the hall, towards the boy standing there and looking at her. The wrong boy, the boy she didn’t want anything to do with anymore.

Brad walked towards her slowly.

“I need to talk you,” he said, then turned to Ned. “I need to talk to Mj.”

“I don’t want to talk to him,” Mj said to Ned, who looked clueless.

Brad was forceful, his tone urgent. “It’ll be quick, I just need a few seconds.”

Just then, Flash walked by, and Mj thought he’d just pass them and out the door, but instead he stopped in his tracks and faced them. “Oh, hey, Brad, are you trying to copy papers from Mj too?” he asked mockingly, then turned to Mj. “This dickwad tried to snag my stuff today and asked me to help him write the paper we have for English next week.”

Brad ignored him. “Mj, please,” he said, and she could feel the desperation in his voice, but she wasn’t interested in giving him any pity. “I really need to talk to you. Alone.”  
“So talk,” she said finally.

“Yeah, talk,” Ned chimed in.

Brad looked trapped, his eyes moving from Mj, to Ned, to Flash, who Mj was sure was standing there just so he could harp on Brad. He had never looked that helpless before, it was almost piteous if he hadn’t used her like that. The more Mj remembered every bit of help she gave him, every time he took advantage of her stupidity, the more she relished in how sorry he looked surrounded by Mj and her friends.

“Okay,” he said, trying to straighten himself up so he didn’t look so small, “I just need talk to you because I got in a bit of hitch with Mrs. Lang,” he said, his eyes still darting around them.

“And?”

“And she told me she knows I didn’t write a few of my older papers from, and she told me she knows I copied them from your old ones.”

“But you did.”

“I was just having a really hard time,” he muttered, a little angry, a little panicked.

Mj was quiet for a little bit, everyone was, even Flash, who wouldn’t shut up sometimes, just waiting for her decision, waiting for her to react.

“Hey, what’s going on?” She felt a hand touch her shoulder softly, and Peter appeared behind them, looking brightly at Mj before his eyes fell on Brad.

“Nothing,” she answered him, “nothing’s going on.”

“Mj, please,” Brad said, stepping forward, and Mj felt the hand on her shoulder return. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the school stuff before, I just…” he looked around desperately. “I just need you to show up to her office with me and help me out, tell her I didn’t copy your stuff or anything.”

Her heart lurched unpleasantly, angrily even. “ _What_?”

“Please,” Brad said, “I need this, or I’ll get kicked off the team, Mj.”

Mj stared at him. “No.”

“No?”

“No,” she shook her head, “I’m not _helping_ you with shit anymore, I–”

“Mj, I can’t get kicked off the team,” Brad was in desperation now, “I just need this one last thing, I promise.”

“You’ll be just fine,” Mj said with contempt. “I’m not doing it. I’m not helping you.”

“No,” Brad protested, his eyes looking more fearful than anything now, “you have to help me–”  
“She already said no, asshole,” Flash cut him off, already opening the door out of the school, and for once in her life, Mj was thankful for something he did.

Ned pushed past Brad towards the door, Peter and Mj following closely behind him, exiting the school and leaving Brad in stunned silence inside.

“What an asshole,” Flash said to them as they stepped out. “I’m glad he’s getting kicked off.”

“Thanks for… that,” Mj said to him awkwardly. The only time he was ever going to be nice to them was through being mean to someone else, but Mj appreciated it.

“Whatever, I just want to get out of first alternate,” Flash said, then he looked at Peter. “Later, Penis.”

Peter gave him a thumbs up as he left in a different direction.

“Did you really let him copy all of your school stuff?” Ned asked her once they were alone, and Mj could breathe a little better.

Mj shrugged. “I guess,” she said, then looked up at Peter.

“So you guys weren’t dating?” he asked her, his eyebrows furrowed. “He was just… copying all of your work?” Mj shrugged again as they walked through the courtyard, the sun gleaming over them. “You know I could web him up against a building if you want.”

Ned laughed, looking behind him as he walked a few paces in front. “Dude, you should totally do that.”

“I don’t care,” Mj said, and as she did, she realized she didn’t.

It was hard to care about anything else when right in front of her were her friends, the only ones that really mattered, making joke after joke as they walked through the streets out of the school, the pathways littered with fallen leaves, the day still bright and beautiful. Ned caught a bus on the next street, and when they were alone, Peter let his hands fall from her shoulder to her fingers.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Peter asked her, his head turning to look at her as they walked, his hand squeezing hers. Mj didn’t know what she ever did to deserve Peter Parker holding her hands.

“I’m okay,” she said, and she meant it, looking right back at him.

Brad was a bygone, he was ancient history. He couldn’t touch her anymore. This was Mj’s life now, holding Peter Parker’s fingers intertwined with hers they walked through the town, the chaos of the city just fading into the background, everything else fading into the background because Peter was there.

Nothing could hurt her as long as he was holding her hand.

 _I love him,_ Mj’s thoughts slip again. This time, she lets herself love him.


	11. all it took was a few broken bones: part 1

_present day _

The last time Mj remembered being this scared was the day her mom left.

It was stormy that day–her mom was theatrical like that–and before the rain started to pour, Mj could remember sitting in their old living room, her mom telling her that she was leaving, that she wouldn’t be back for a little while, but _I love you, Michelle, I love you so much._ She didn’t get it. Even to this day, she didn’t get it. 

She was her child, her daughter, her _little baby girl_ , and what she did to her was the exact opposite of what you do to someone you love.

Mj remembered watching her parents yell at each other, plates smashed on the floor, broken glass at their feet. She remembered her mother’s words, her shaky kiss on the forehead, her dad sobbing in the kitchen where he thought she couldn’t hear him. 

When you’re six years old, you can’t fathom the idea of your mom suddenly leaving. You just can’t. She remembered being confused, not even sure what was happening, not sure why her mom was carrying the big bag she usually brought with her when they went on vacations. 

Her dad explained it in a few ways over the years. She was on a secret mission they weren’t allowed to know about. She was building a school for all the poor kids who couldn’t afford it. She was secretly the voice singing for Beyonce and she had to go with them on tour. (This one she actually believed for a while. Her mom always sang around the house while she cooked.) But Mj was a smart kid, and she was a bright kid, and she pieced things together pretty quickly after a little while and stopped asking her dad about it.

She was so scared that day, she remembered having nightmares about it for a week. 

Now it was eleven years later, and as Mj closed her eyes and breathed in the sickening hospital smell, she could say that maybe, this was even scarier.

***

“So, how’s school?” her dad asked her earlier that day, carrying two plates of food down to the coffee table in the living room while Mj turned on the TV.

“It’s okay. I aced a few tests, nothing really new.” Mj shrugged, and her dad laughed.

Things had significantly improved in the awkwardness aspect of their household since the day Peter came over and had dinner with them. It wasn’t the best way, but it was her dad’s way of fixing things in their family, by covering them up with new problems, and this time, Peter came in handy, giving them something new to focus on, something to distract them from the underlying issues they had.

 _Do u want me to come over a little earlier tonight so we can watch the new season of the conspiracy show you like,_ Peter texted her as her dad flipped through the channels.

 _No my dads home today we’re having dinner,_ she replied before setting her phone down again so they could eat.

“This is really good,” Mj said and looked at her dad after a few bites, which roughly translated to ‘this is passably edible for your skill level.’ “Are you sure you made this?” she asked for effect, even though she knew he did.

He smiled proudly anyway, leaving the TV on the news channel. “I did. I got the recipe on the internet.”

“Well, it’s really good, dad.”

“Thanks,” he said, reaching out for his own plate. “Maybe I’ll start cooking more often for a change.”

“Yeah, then we can have something other than waffles for breakfast,” Mj teased him absentmindedly as she checked her phone, her dad laughing.

 _Oh cool is he asking about me????_ Peter had texted, to which Mj replied, _Yes he said he doesnt like u._

“Is that Peter?” her dad asked as if on cue, forking some carrots into his mouth. “Tell him to come over again and I’ll cook something good, since he liked the last spaghetti recipe so much.”

“Oh, yeah, he loved it,” Mj nodded and set her phone down again, smiling at her dad.

She didn’t really have the heart to tell him his spaghetti was horrible, but Peter acted like it was good out of courtesy, and he maintained the lie until Mj acknowledged it when he snuck in later that night.

“If he wants the recipe, he can ask for it,” the older man said, cutting some of the vegetables on his knife, “but that doesn’t mean I’m giving it to him,” he said with a laugh, and Mj smiled back at him.

They ate and talked lightheartedly, her dad diving into this petty story with one of his work friends, their attention diverting towards the TV when a flash of red crossed the screen, cutting a video clip of dog balancing a bottle on its head in short.

 _Breaking News,_ it read, followed by a tacky little stream of music, then followed by live footage of the Manhattan city skyline. A big, black ship–a spaceship, Mj recognized from all the times New York had been visited–was descending down to the ground.

Mj reached out to her phone while a reporter briefed them on what was going on. No new texts from Peter.

It was just then that she saw it, a flash of red and blue on the TV screen, and she recognized it in a heartbeat, her chest suddenly lurching forward her in body, her stomach in knots.

It’s Peter, no, actually, it’s Spider-Man, swinging towards the ship, webbing up the creatures coming out of the entrance.

Her head is a mess, her heart is beating dangerously fast, and yet, she can’t seem to tear her eyes away from the screen. Mj doesn’t notice it but her hands turn cold, her stomach clenched, her entire body tensed up with fear, the only thing she’s noticing now was what was happening on TV.

She’d seen Spider-Man fight before. On live television, on the news, on YouTube, once in Washington. This time it was different, because the person behind the mask wasn’t just some rando with super strength, it was Peter. Her Peter. And her chest was beating too hard, she felt like her body couldn’t keep up, her throat with closing in, her limbs getting numb with panic, with fear–

Her phone dinged. It was Ned.

_Dont freak out ok? First time you see it it’s kind of scary but he always comes out fine._

Mj takes a deep breath, her hands shaking as she reads the text, and she forces herself to type back, to calm down.

_You sure right? Youve seen this before._

Her head snaps back up to the TV screen when a loud crash comes out of it, and the Hulk is on screen, running towards the mess, as Spider-Man wrestles with some new creatures leaving the space ship. Green bursts of light come out from the side, blowing up a big chunk of the aircraft, and it’s Dr. Strange, she recognizes him from the videos she and Peter spent pouring over that one night.

Mj closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath. That’s not their last. She promises herself blindly that that’s not their last.

 _Yup I’m sure ok,_ Ned’s reply comes in, _Just calm down I know youre probably freaking out_

And he’s not wrong, but he didn’t exactly get it right how much it twisted Mj’s insides and made her heart jump out of her chest to see Spider-Man there, to see him fight off some goddamn aliens and get hurt in the process, all the while knowing it was Peter under the mask.

 _Thanks, ned,_ she types in with a shaky hand, then adds, _Lol_ , to downplay the anxiety.

“You alright, baby?” her dad’s voice comes from beside her, and Mj nearly forgot he was even there until he spoke.

Spider-Man jumped towards one of the exits on the ship, the Hulk tearing his way through the inside of it, while Dr. Strange seemed to be clearing out the streets with pulses of energy.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Mj replied, “I’m just... worried.” _Worried._ Like it was a test she didn’t study enough for. Worried wasn't close to what she was feeling.

“Well, it happens all the time, remember?” Her dad stood up and kissed the top of her head. “I’m going to clear off these plates, are you still eating?”

“No, I’m done,” Mj responded, her eyes back on the screen. She’d lost her appetite. She’d lost it, and she felt like she wasn’t getting it back anytime soon.

She didn’t notice her dad putting a gentle hand on her head as he left the living room with their plates as another flash of light occupied the screen, this time causing a huge hole in the ship, while Spider-Man leapt out of in a hurry. Mj watched as the creatures from inside pulled him back inside as it ascended off into the air, and she couldn’t breathe, her heart beating too hard and too fast for her body. 

“No, no, no, no,” Mj was whispered to herself but she couldn’t even hear it, she didn’t even realize it, her limbs cold and paralyzed with fear.

Peter shot a web at them and it exploded just fast enough for him to jump out of the ship, but it was high up now, and Mj watched as he fell and fell and fell, and it felt like a lifetime of watching Peter fall from the sky, shooting his web up to the ship but it was too fast, too far up to stick to it. The Hulk and Dr. Strange were running towards him, but they were too far off, and just like that, in front of Mj’s eyes, Peter crashed onto the floor.

He didn’t get up.

Everything that happened next was a whirlwind, a mess of worry and panic and just pure fear, and Mj fumbled with her phone shakily, dropping it on the floor twice before she could press enough buttons to make the call to Aunt May. The line beeped. The user was busy. Mj called again, and again, and again, then when she wouldn’t pick up, she called Ned.

“May–May won’t pick up,” she said immediately into the phone as soon as he answered, but she couldn’t hear her own voice over the sound of her heart thumping so fast it was in her ears.

“I know, I know,” Ned replied, the panic in his voice a little more subtle. “Just… calm down okay?”

Mj said, okay, she would, but when she hung up, she was back to catatonic, completely in shambles, and she texted May with cold, shaky hands.

 _He’ll be okay,_ she types in, even though she isn’t sure it’s true. _Please call me as soon as you know where he is, May, but he’ll be fine._

He’ll be fine, he’ll be fine, he’ll be fine.

Mj closes her eyes, and repeats it to herself like a chant, like saying it over and over would make it come true. She wouldn’t know what to do if it doesn’t.

***

While Mj sits in the waiting room, all she can think about it how many times she had the chance to kiss Peter, and how stupid she was for not taking them.

She’s on an uncomfortable chair and breathing in the hospital scent, her throat tight and her heart constricting against her chest, but her mind was back to last week, back to holding Peter’s hand in the dark. He fell asleep before her that night–he was tired from chasing down a stolen car earlier that evening–and he was breathing softly, steadily, his face relaxed, his body all warm next to her under the blankets. Mj had run a hand through his hair as he slept, and he woke up just a little bit enough to smile at her, and watching him flutter back off to sleep made her feel so soft and so lucky and so damn _in love_. 

She takes a deep breath of the hospital air again, eyes closed, and she transports to a few mornings ago, with Peter standing in her kitchen with his pajamas and his bed hair, pancake batter on his nose. Her dad was out of state again that week, and she and Peter had woken up early enough to make pancakes before he snuck back into his apartment to get ready for school, and they were laughing, way too early in the morning to be that happy.

“No, no, no, no,” Peter was groaning, his eyes closed with happiness, as he held Mj’s batter-covered finger away from his face like he didn’t have the super strength to fight her off. The remnants of their laughter were still on his face when she conceded, and he opened his eyes softly, his face close to hers. Mj wanted to kiss him, breathe him in, fill in every space between them, never let any sort of space between them again, before Peter dipped a finger in the pancake batter and swiped it across her face.

They burned the pancakes that day.

She breathes in again, and again, and her mind takes her to the days after school when the light would get caught in his eyes, the wind blowing his hair into perfection, and he’d just smile at her and she’d remember how smitten she was, the nights after his rounds when he’d sit on her bed and stare softly while she wiped off little wounds he sustained, the one time she felt a little sick and he swung over with some cold medicine and some soup, and she just kept thinking that he was good. He was good for her, good for her heart, and she didn’t want to lose him. Ever.

With every artful, picturesque second, her brain would always make her second-guess every move she made, tell her she was doing something wrong, that she wasn’t reading all the signs right and Peter _didn’t_ have that soft gleam in her eyes, that he _wasn’t_ looking at her lips like that. She didn’t want to screw it up, because this was him, and it had to be perfect.

But now that she was in the cold of the hospital waiting room, her body weak with fear, her future full of uncertainty, she just wanted to go back and kiss him every time she had the chance.


	12. all it took was a few broken bones: part 2

_ present day _

“Mj, right?”

A voice knocked Mj out of her daydream, back into the chilly hospital waiting room. It was the man who picked her up from her house earlier that night whose name she couldn’t quite remember, kind of scruffy-looking, even in a black suit, and Mj was too panicked to question him when he turned up at her house and said he was working with Spider-Man, and that he personally knew May and had asked him to come and get her.

“Yeah?” she looked up, already halfway out of the seat. Her voice was loud and it cut through the tense silence of the waiting room, the other visitors looking.

“You can come in now,” he said, holding the door open for her as Mj stood up and walked into the room, the man following her as they furthered into the hallway. “So, you’re the girlfriend?” he asked her suddenly, watching her, studying her, like he knew something she didn’t.

“Uh…”

“Oh, yeah,” he nodded to himself, “Peter did say you weren’t his girlfriend _yet_ , just _the girl he likes_ or something.”

“Is he okay?” Mj asked, ignoring his comment, her mind still on something else. Before he could answer, they reached one of the rooms, and when Mj saw May standing inside, she couldn’t help but run to her and hug her.

May patted her head gently, like she understood. “Scary watching it happen, right?” she said, and her voice was soothing, reassuring.

“Is he okay?” she repeated her question, this time to Aunt May, before looking around the room, her eyes falling to a figure behind the glass–Peter. Seeing him there made her heart thump in relief even though nothing was for certain yet.

“They said all signs point to just a few fractures in his arm, but they still can’t be completely sure until he wakes up,” she said to Mj as the older woman followed her to stand up against the glass. The doctors were rummaging around him, writing things down, reading stuff on a screen Mj didn’t understand.

“Okay,” Mj sighed, something in her chest unravelling. “Okay.”

She only noticed everyone else in the room afterwards, when her head stopped spinning with worry, the tunnel vision she didn’t know she’d been seeing through finally clearing up. Dr. Strange and Bruce Banner were standing by the side, looking a little out of place in the small room. 

“Hi,” Mj couldn’t help but say.

“Hi,” they chorused kindly, Dr. Banner smiling enough for the both of them.

And as if the situation wasn’t overwhelming enough, the door swung open, all of their eyes turning to it as Pepper Potts rushed into the room, holding a little girl’s hand, and Mj knew in a second who it was.

“Happy,” the older lady said as her eyes glazed over everyone in the room, “what’s going on? What happened?”

“Kid got into an accident, bunch of aliens again,” the man–Happy, as Mj now knew–answered as Pepper approached the glass hurriedly, heels tapping against the floor. “Fell from 50 meters, but they say he’s okay. They’re moving him into a room tonight.”

“He’s okay?”

“He’s okay,” Happy nodded, before crouching down and giving Morgan a high-five. “What’s up, kid?”

She slapped the older man’s hand. “Peter has spider powers, I knew he would be okay,” she said, her voice tiny, the sound reverberating through the room.

“And,” Bruce chimed in, approaching the kid and giving her a hug, “he did so good fighting the monsters today.”

“How about the aliens, are they all taken care of?” Pepper asked.

Dr. Strange stepped forward to stand next to her. “Krees,” he said to Pepper, “they ended up in the wrong planet, I think, we didn’t really get around to chatting with them. But yes, they’re all gone.”

The worry and the stiff tension in the air seemed to dissipate after a little while as everyone got to talking about what happened, Bruce and Dr. Strange just chatting with Morgan, Happy introducing Pepper to Aunt May, but Mj was still leaning against the glass, watching Peter sleep.

Her heartbeat was slowing back to a natural pace, a calm sense of comfort replacing the anxiety just knowing that he was there, he was alive.

A warm hand landed on her shoulder, and Mj looked up.

“Mj? Right?” Pepper Potts smiled at her. She was a little older in real life, but there was a certain beauty in her aura that pictures and news clips didn’t seem to capture.

“Yeah?”

“Peter’s girlfriend?” she smiled warmly, and Mj felt hot in her neck. Peter was telling them about her?

“No,” Happy answered, “not _yet_ , remember?”

Pepper chuckled, and the sound was graceful, mature. “Oh, yeah. Not _yet_.”

“I mean, you’d think,” Happy rolled his eyes jokingly at Pepper, “by the way he talks about her.”

Pepper chuckled again at that comment but she addressed Mj. “Nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet _you_ ,” Mj smiled, adjusting the waistband of her jeans, suddenly very conscious of her appearance. She would’ve worn something a little nicer if she knew she was meeting Pepper freaking Potts and a bunch of Avengers, but then again she was in such a panicked state just a few minutes earlier she couldn’t really blame herself for showing up in an ill-fitting t-shirt and a pair of jeans with a coffee stain on the front. 

Pepper didn’t seem to notice any of it, or if she did, she didn’t care. She was incredibly warm towards Mj, and it surprised her to realize that Pepper Potts knew Peter pretty well, well enough to find their middle ground in discussing how dumb the boy could be sometimes. Happy and May overheard them talking about it and joined in on the jokes, but with everything they said there was an understood “but we love him to death” that didn’t even need saying.

The nurse came in a little while later to wheel Peter out to a private room, and when everything was settled, one by one, they said goodbye and left the hospital.

“There’s a lot of this when you’re in Peter’s life,” May said to her when they were finally let into the room, hovering over his sleeping body. She touched his arm and his face gently and then took a step back. “I swear to God, I’m going to go gray because of this kid.”

“It wasn’t part of the contract when you took him in?” Mj joked.

“Nope,” May laughed, touching his arm again. “Definitely not in the terms and conditions,” then she put a soft hand on Mj’s shoulder. “I’m going to head home, bring Peter some clothes and toiletries and stuff. Will you watch him while I’m gone?”

“Actually, I was thinking about staying the night,” Mj said quietly. “Could I?”

May smiled at her before heading out the door. “I think he’d like that.”

When she was gone, Mj pulled out her phone to text her dad that she’d be staying in the hospital, and then Ned to update him on the situation before she finally laid her eyes on Peter. 

She took a step towards him, looking at his face, and she chuckled, because of course he still managed to look absolutely perfect after an accident like that. Mj touched his arm, his face, his chest, feeling the subtle warmth he still had, feeling his breath, feeling his heartbeat. 

And then it hits her all at once, and it hits her hard–she could’ve lost him today if things had gone even a little bit differently, but she didn’t, and he’s okay, and he’s there, breathing underneath her fingertips.

“Oh my god,” Mj breathes out, her chest aching so much her face contorts into an expression of worry, of relief, of something between those two things that she can’t fathom. She closes her eyes when the tears start to threaten them, blindly reaching for his fingers and holding his one limp hand in both of hers, and she’s not one to believe in a higher power, so it says a lot that she starts thanking every deity she knows of that he’s alive.

This is Peter. Peter, who holds her hand in the dark and puts gummy worms in her bag when she’s had a bad day. Peter who was best friend, her person. And if she didn’t quite understand how big of a part he played in her humdrum life, she knew it now. If there was ever a future where Peter wasn’t in her life, she didn’t want it.

May doesn’t come back for another hour, and Mj spends it sitting beside Peter’s bed, one hand holding up her phone so she could read _The Outsiders,_ the other rubbing soft circles on the boy’s skin. She and May eat for a while, talking softly about school, about the decathlon team, college, and vacation plans, menial things that are so easy to talk to after the emotional turbulence of everything the past couple hours, and then when the soft chatter turns into silence, Mj tells May she should go to bed on the big couch in the hospital room. She doesn’t fight it, but she does give Mj a big sweater before she fell asleep, the only light in the room from Mj’s phone and the sparkling city lights outside the hospital windows. 

When she hears May snoring softly, she sneaks her hand back into Peter’s.

***

Mj doesn’t remember falling asleep.

The last thing she can recall is flipping through the last pages of _The Outsiders_ , the small clock on her phone telling her it was 4:17 am, her chair pushed to the side of Peter’s bed so her head was resting against his arm.

“Peter, are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yup.”

“What else do you want me to get?”

“Just the sandwich, May. And maybe some water for Mj when she wakes up.”

The door shuts, and Mj feels the light in the room even with her eyes closed. She feels the cold next, and then the stiffness in her back and in her neck, and then just like that, all her senses come alive, and her eyes jolt open, and her heart thumps so suddenly in her chest because–

“Peter?” her voice comes out in a croak, but she doesn’t care, she couldn’t give less of a shit about anything else, because the sun streaming through the hospital windows let Mj see that Peter was awake.

He smiles at her, it’s the first thing he does, and it almost makes her cry, because at one point last night, she thought there was a very real chance she’d never see it again.

“You’re awake,” he says softly as he sits up in bed, the grin he got upon seeing her still across his face.

“Oh,” Mj moans when she hears his voice, not realizing how much she missed it during the hours he was unconscious, and she rubs her eyes, getting up from the chair. “Are you okay?”

Peter makes room for her in the hospital bed, and she takes it. “Yeah, I feel fine, by arm just kinda hurts,” he says, then chuckles quietly, softly, as Mj lays her head on his stomach and hugs his torso. “Were you really just there all night? When I woke up you were passed out.”

“No,” she mutters quietly, even though it’s evidently a yes, and Mj looks up at him, his face so close now she could see every angle on his face, every curvature, and she’s reminded of why she’s completely enamored. He’s so damn pretty.

Peter smiles at her. “You stayed up in here for me?” It’s barely a question, the way he looks at Mj letting her know he’s completely aware he made her a catatonic ball of worry.

“It’s not a big deal.” Peter’s face makes her think it is.

“Were you worried about me or something?”

“No, it’s not like you fell from, like, an alien space ship,” she mutters, lifting her head up, then rolls her eyes, but the smile still escapes her lips, and she can’t help it. “Oh, wait, you did, loser.”

Peter looks at her tenderly, fingers finding a bit of skin on her hand and he rubs circles on it. “You were really worried about me.” It’s not a question anymore, he says it with his voice low and a little raspy, and it has an impact on Mj’s chest that isn’t so subtle.

That’s all it takes for her to turn to mush.

“It cramps my style, but I really was,” she says quietly, a soft quality in her voice and in her gaze she let only Peter see, and she watches him as he breathes slowly, his hair all fluffy and catching just the perfect amount of morning light, eyes just tracing every corner of her face. It warms her, makes her heart melt into her stomach, but she continues to speak. “I was watching you just fight off these like, alien creatures with the Hulk and Dr. Strange, and then you were suddenly on this ship, and–”

Mj doesn’t finish her sentence.

Mj forgets what it was, she forgets every single sentence in the world, because Peter kisses her right on her lips, just for a quick second, before it even registers in her brain.

He stares at her, eyes wide before he speaks. “It’s just… I almost died without doing that yet,” his voice is raspy and quiet. “And I’ve really wanted to do it for a while.”

Mj wants one more. She wants a million more, actually, but she starts with one.

It’s softer this time, a little less abrupt, and when their noses bump against each other, Peter chuckles against her mouth, and Mj laughs when her hair falls on his face, and they pull away, giggling at each other like giddy little children. It’s awkward and bumpy, but Mj doesn’t care. It’s Peter.

When they calm, Mj stares at him and studies the face she doesn’t tire of learning about every damn day, because he’s beautiful, and he’s looking at her with the eyes she only recognizes in the dark of her room. Mj leans forward again to kiss his cheek, but Peter puts a hand on her face and kisses her on the mouth, gently at first, his lips finally finding sync with hers after they collide softly, his thumb rubbing against the warm flesh her neck.

It’s a new feeling for Mj, and she’s out of words for it. She doesn’t think there’s anything in the English dictionary to describe the feeling of how her stomach burns and skin tingles and heart swells, but she finds it difficult to care about defining it when she’s right there, immersed in the feeling.

Peter’s lips find hers again, and Mj relishes in the sight of his closed eyes, his warm mouth, his hot breath against her face. The way he moves his lips on hers and the feeling of his hand creeping back up to the side of her neck has her sighing without realizing it, her mouth just needing more of his, and–

“Hey, look who’s here, I–”

The door swung open. Ned and May walk into the room, their expressions identical, and it’s funny how fast Peter and Mj jump away from each other, the feeling in Mj’s stomach changing drastically into something of fear and embarrassment. 

“Oh,” May says, eyebrows up. “Okay.”

Ned is grinning, holding a box of donuts. “So all it took was a few broken bones?”

“No,” Peter groans, hands over his eyes, “no, please… I… I don’t want to make it weird.”

“You already have, honey,” May says, laughing as she puts down a paper bag of food on the table, Ned walking into the room, grinning at Mj stupidly, and Mj is so embarrassed they were caught she can’t bring herself not to laugh.

“Sorry,” Mj mutters to the room in general.

“It’s nothing to be sorry about,” May responds in her adult voice, “I told Peter, it’s a normal part of teenage life, and it’s important that it’s safe, it’s consensual, and–”

“ _M_ _ay,_ ” Peter shifts up in bed and groans, as Ned laughs, “can we just talk about this later please?”

His Aunt opens the box of donuts as she sits on the couch and offers Ned one. “Oh, we’re definitely talking about this later.”

The room fills with talk and laughter and donut powder quickly, but Mj, however active in conversation, was still just coming to terms with the fact that she finally kissed Peter Parker.

It wasn’t anything like she thought it would be, and she had thought about it quite a lot. She’d imagined it and reimagined it over and over in her head, she’d poured over every scenario that would’ve made the perfect first kiss, but it all the thought she had put into it turned out to be futile.

She ended up finally kissing him in a hospital room, with Ned and May walking into them a few seconds later.

Mj watched as Peter talked to Ned and May, laughing at something she didn’t care about, his hair all perfect disheveled from lying down, his eyes gleaming with mirth, the sunlight falling on him almost artfully.

All the dreamy, Hollywood movie kisses against a beautiful backdrop, the millions she had read about in books, with the fireworks in their stomach or whatever, the ones she’d imagined her to have with him in the perfect place at the perfect time–they all didn’t matter anymore.

Mj knew it now, as she watched him smile at her with the softest look in his eyes, that it never had to be perfect. It just had to be Peter.


	13. epilogue

  
“You ready?”

“Will I ever be?”

“I mean, I just don’t wanna take you by surprise, maybe you don’t actually want to do it, and I wanna make sure you’re–”

“Oh, just do it Peter.”

Mj isn’t ready, it turns out. When Peter runs off to the edge of the building and jumps with Mj wrapped around his neck, her heart leaps out of her chest and drops down to her stomach, and Peter shoots a web on the side of a building just soon enough so they don’t hit the ground. They swing through the city, and Mj’s face is numb, and she’s not sure whether it’s the cold of the wind or the fact that they’re pretty much soaring through the air, nothing underneath them. It’s all familiar to Peter, the feeling of the wind, the motions, the rise and fall, but with Mj wrapped around him, it’s all new and exciting again, and it also doesn’t hurt that it gives him an excuse to be so close to her.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” Mj hisses, tightening her grip on Peter’s shoulder, her stomach in knots. The ground below is blurry with the speed they move through, and the rising and falling feeling keeps going and going.

“You alright?” Peter is asking through the mask, his voice muffled just slightly, but Mj can tell it’s calm.

“Oh, I’m not scared at all,” Mj answers sarcastically with a shaky voice, which she realizes isn’t best when her life is quite literally in his hands. They nearly swing onto a street lamp, and she yelps, but Peter easily avoids it as they swing by.

“That’s why I asked if you were ready!”

Mj’s hands are cold as ice and her body is tense, her stomach lurching with every time they go up and down, but once she relaxes, realizes it’s Peter carrying her, she feels the air and the movement, the speed by which they move through the city, suddenly, it’s not scary. It’s exhilarating, Mj thinks after a while, how they’re flying through the buildings, looking down at the city she’s known all her life in an entirely different way, and even though she’s wrapped around Peter’s body, she feels free as hell and she relishes in every second of it.

When they land back on the roof of Mj’s building, she still feels like she’s floating.

“Wow,” Mj says. 

Peter slips off his mask, already grinning at her when he does. “It’s fun right?”

“I don’t want to take the train ever again,” she chuckles, sitting down on the cement. Her bag is still where they left it, and she drags it over to herself and throws Peter his clothes and pulls out the food they brought for this particular day.

She’s used to seeing him shirtless now, from all the times he’s changed in front of her in her room after he made his rounds protecting the city, but Mj still feels hot in her neck when he slips off his suit and is left in only his boxers.

It makes her think things. Things they haven’t really touched on, but are quite obviously something in their future.

“So, I brought some Cheetos and Pop-tarts,” Mj says as Peter slips back on his jeans, giving herself an excuse to look at him as she pulled out some food. “Oh, and half of my burrito from lunch.”

Peter throws on a sweater and picks up his school bag. “I brought these mini donuts,” he sits down beside Mj, and she doesn’t resist herself from kissing him on the cheek, “and I made a grilled cheese sandwich at home before I left. Like, the one I made for you that one time.” 

Peter looks up at her lovingly, and Mj knows they’re both thinking of how long they had come since then. 

“I just have to tell you,” she says, tearing open the bag of donuts, “it wasn’t that good.”

Peter laughs. “Hey.”

It’s a nice day in Queens, still pretty sunny for a fall afternoon, the chill in the air just the perfect amount to give Mj and Peter an excuse to sit really close together as they eat, talking about nothing in particular, but they keep chattering anyway just so they could both hear the sound of the other’s voice. 

It’s Mj’s favorite thing, spending her afternoons letting time roll by with Peter, the sun going down as the hours pass, and it slowly paints the sky a nice pink and orange, turning everything the light hit into gold. It turned Mj’s hair into a brown and her eyes into a dark honey color, and Peter couldn’t stop staring.

“And it’s really the best book ever,” Mj says, her face glowing with the excitement only talking about her favorite pieces of literature gave her, “and the movie adaptation was pretty good, too, but it’s just not the same.”

“Yeah?” Peter echoes. His hands had been playing with hers for minutes now, but she still doesn’t seem to notice.

“Yeah, definitely,” she replies, and dives into a long explanation, and he listens, staring at her because there was nothing quite like the fire in her eyes when she was discussing the things she loved, but also because she’s so pretty, it makes his heart do the thing it only does for Mj. _So damn pretty._ It’s his favorite thing in the world to just be in her presence and listen to her voice while she talks, especially on that rooftop, where it’s so easy to forget the world that exists below them. 

When she stops talking, Peter is still looking at her.

“What?” Mj asks. She tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear and looks back at him, and she gives him one of her secret smiles, the ones she gives him when they’re in bed and he’s playing with her hair.

“Nothing,” he lies.

“Okay.”

There’s a short silence between them now, but it’s comfortable, and it’s intimate, and they spend it playing with each other’s fingers as the sun started to set before them, and it’s only when Peter speaks that the stillness is disturbed.

“You know I’m in love with you, right?” 

His stare is tender and his voice is soft, but it hits Mj hard, and her heart gets the brunt of it, and it starts beating at the rate it does when it’s for Peter. It was only ever for Peter.

“And it doesn’t have to be a big deal,” he continues, eyes sincere, when Mj just stares. “Like, you don’t have to say it back, I just… I want you to know,” he says awkwardly– _still_ awkwardly after all that time, and it makes Mj smile despite her heart hurting with everything she feels.

“I don’t have to?” she asks.

Peter smiles, his eyes dropping down to her hands, and he takes it in his. “Of course not.”

“You’re stupid,” Mj chuckles, putting a hand on his face just softly, and he’s warm underneath her fingertips, and then she feels it on her lips, too, because she kisses his cheek. “You think I’m not in love with you?” She's still giggling against his face, giggling a the sheer absurdity of the idea that she wasn't in love with him. How the hell could she not be?

“Well, I just–”

“I love you,” Mj cuts him off, her voice small, because even though she means it with her chest, she has a hard time saying it, but the look on the Peter’s face makes up for it, and she wants to keep saying just so she can see it again.

The sun is fully setting now, the sky bathed in purple and blue and orange.

Peter and Mj watch it go down as they fill the stillness and the silence with talk and soft laughter, the glow of the sun dimmer with every minute that elapses. Peter pulls her gently closer to him when the wind gets a little chillier, and Mj just takes it in; the smell of his cologne, the feeling of his hands on her skin, his heat against her body, the sight of his face, so pretty, and so perfect and everything she ever wanted.

Mj takes a deep breath, her heart full. 

That’s where she belongs. In his warmth. In his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaand it's done!!!!! thank you so much for reading this! this is the first thing i put on here and im so touched by the amount of support and love ive been getting for this i didnt expect that at aaaaall and it means the world that you liked it, especially since i was really just writing stuff i wanted to read. so a lot of fluff.  
> i want to apologize for any mistakes i made with grammar, punctuation, and writing about seasons and classes and how to play go fish and stuff im not...from there  
> i would also just like to acknowledge that the first few chapters were probably not very good so thanks for going through them<3  
> i also wanted to keep it going but i didn't want to do that just for the sake of it so im very sorry abt cutting it like that, but the title is just the story of how they kissed HAHAHAHA  
> i feel ive made a bunch of friends through the comments, so now that im done writing this pls suggest really good mj/peter fics i can enjoy (i avoided them so i wouldn't end up copying anything) or just any good avengers fics (im also a very big bucky stan so drop your suggestions pls!) <3  
> i hope i made you feel things reading this fic! <3


End file.
